








^ 



\ 






\> * JA^^/)n 






% 


/ 


v' 








^^" 


,\V 


'^.> ' 

'/*-. 

•^c^ ^ 






~- V 


'> 


% 






'?.- 


^ <j 


v -^ 


A^^' 










O. 

■^ 




-0^ 












"o 


0^ 














^^' 


'% 












/ 


^^' * 


"a 


% 







oo. 






■J" "^ V,' 



^ ^r 



C^. 









^. 



\r- ,-^x> ^ : -> c,-' -- - ^^ 



^■■' - - "'^^..^^^^ 






.v\> 




•^.^^^v^^ 






?/. '" > ^"^ 


c^'' 






^^' - 




-o^ 


OO,. 




^^ ^c^ 








• 'O 






■><> f -/^ 






, ■ f/ C 




•■ 


.,./ ■«. y, ^ 










- ^ 


^. 


-' ■,' 











if 



^^-^ ^*^ 



**-, 



* .%'* 






vO< 












.^ -^<^. 






:^' ^Sr 






v>'!- ^ 



K' 



..^ 



^^\ 



^S^ 



oo^ 



%\ "^ v^ 



Sj5 --% 

[\ o 1 * " / 



xO °- 



,^"^ 



.a'-^' 









^^.li^ 



•A .; 



^'^• 



•>^^■■ ^^. 


















^^^ .>^% 



INTERVIKWS 



WITH A 



MONOCLE 



BY 

,/ 



LEOPOLD JORDAN 




san francisco: 

The Whitaker & Ray Co. 

(incorporated) 

1902 

New York : Chicago : 

WM. B. HARISON a. C. McCLURG & CO. 

65 E. 59th St. Wabash Ave. 



JTHE LIS??ARY «lFl 

j CONe«»£SS, f 

I APR. f 1902 ' 

COPYHitlHT 6NTBy 

CLAst a. )«(o f^ 
copy a 



Copyright 1902 

BY 
I^EOPOLD JORDAN 






TO THE PUBLIC. 

In presenting the Unpublished, and the Published, In- 
terviews with the Monocle as they did not, and as they did, 
appear in The Daily Inflated, the compiler begs to make 
no excuse other than his determination to show the Mon- 
ocle's good, sound, common-sense in refusing to give an 
opinion of this Great Nation until first becoming familiar 
with the People's Institutions and the People themselves. 
The discarded Interviews which appear in the first part 
of the book, and which were found in The Inflated* s waste- 
paper basket, are nothing more than a set of evasive va- 
porings effused, evidently, in the hope of freedom from 
questions which could not be intelligently answered by an 
utter stranger just arrived at the Metropolitan gates of 
these vast United States of America. 

In the second part, however, the compiler has taken, 
with the sanction and courtesy of The Inflated' s propri- 
etary, the Interviews as given by the Monocle after return- 
ing from a long tour of the country. Those Interviews, 
which created no little controversy within certain political 
rings and among disturbers of Peace and Order, have been 
especially chosen for reproduction. 



Vi 



I 






CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

The Monocle Arrives (Announcement by The Inflated) 9 



INTERVIEWS AND MATTER DISCOVERED IN THE 
WASTE PAPER BASKET. 

The Monocle, asked about the United States, their National 
and Civic Governments and Statue of Liberty, refuses 
to be interviewed on the subject and, instead, proves 
how successfully a battle could be conducted by Editors 
from editorial quarters 11 

The Monocle evades questions pertaining to the U. S. A. and 

talks of a growing evil 19 

The Monocle, still obstinate, interviews the Interviewer and 
has much to say about Mother-in-law, which matter 
leads to the reporter's instant dismissal 26 

The Monocle receives a visit from The Inflated's editor-in-chief, 
Mr. Spikem, and dodging the questions of the eminent 
journalist, gives a startling opinion about the Auto- 
mobile 35 

The Monocle having successfully avoided giving an opinion of 
the U. S. A. and their National and Municipal Govern- 
ments and Statue of Liberty to Editor Spikem, encount- 
ers, in turn, the Poet-Editor, Mr. Nebuchadnezzar Inkey, 
who hears strange advice on travel 39 

The Monocle causes tumultuous topsy-turvydom in the office 
of The Daily Inflated, and is the means of sending the 
wife and servant and one cat, belonging to the Editor, 
into a swoon 49 

The Monocle starts upon a journey through the States and 
Editor Stunts, failing to nail the Monocle down to an 
opinion of this country, is compelled to listen to matter 
so irrelevant and so irrational that it finds its way, like 
the preceding Interviews, to the waste paper basket ... 54 



CONTENTS— (7onft^ti/ed. 

PAGE. 

The Monocle gone, Editor Stunts tarries awhile, then mistakes 
an Undertaker's Establishment for his office. His 
brother Editors arrive at a sad conclusion 59 



PART II. 



THE INTERVIEWS AS THEY APPEARED IN THE INFLATED 

The Monocle returns and now gives important interviews. 
Scores defamers of public men of the States and has a 
word or two to say about our Freedom and Equality , . 67 

The Monocle gives valuable advice as to the disposal of those 

who come to the U. S. A. to make a living 74 

The Monocles views on the living of the T>oor of the Metrop- 

polis of the U. S. A 86 

The Monocle assails prodigious gifts of libraries while the 
tenements and dwellings of the unfortunate are kept in 
a disgraceful condition 90 

The Monocle finds a lack of a proper Administration of Justice. 
INEQUALITY, INJUSTICE, LYNCHINGS and so- 
called "Stealing of Franchises" considered 95 

The Monocle pays the HIGHEST HOMAGE TO OUR MAR- 
TYRED PRESIDENT, CONDEMNS SCANDAL, RI- 
BALDRY AND INFLAMMATORY RHETORIC 104 

The Monocle denounces our Police Court methods 114 

The Monocle discusses an important OFFICIAL MILITARY 
ORDER ISSUED with the object of improving the Con- 
duct of our SOLDIERS 120 

The Monocle declares that the RICH MAN IS THE FRIEND 
OF THE POOR, and CONDEMNS AGITATORS AND 
DISTURBERS 126 

The Mo^vocle reviews the Immigration Report 129 

The Monocle's last word before departing for Happy Old Eng- 
land 132 



THE 

ARRIVAL of the MONOCLE. 

PERSISTENT REFUSAL TO BE INTER- 
VIEWED UNTIL FIRST HAVING 
SEEN THE COUNTRY. 



JSJrt^riS'dS'^St. Ci>e Daily umm '■« ^-p-'-- -«p«" 

Vol XXIV. New York, Thursday, February 14th, 1901 Price 5 Cents 



THE MONOCLE ARRIVES ON THE ARROW LINE 
STEAMER DART— THE DISTINGUISHED 
VISITOR GRACIOUSLY RECEIVES THE 
DAILY IN FLAT ED' 8 REPRE- 
SENTATIVE. 

Among the arrivals on the Arrow Line Steamer, Dart, 
last evening was the Monocle. 

The steamer was several hours over due owing to Cap- 
tain Sensible absolutely refusing to hurry his vessel with 
its precious souls aboard through a dense fog. The pas- 
sengers, appreciating the care and vigilance of Captain 
Sensible, presented him with a testimonial setting forth his 
worth as an efficient and painstaking skipper. Those most 
prominent of the three hundred saloon passengers were, 
besides the Monocle, Lord and Lady Algernon Pompcourt, 
who are here on an extended tour of the States ; Mr. George 
Henry Bragg, a multi-millionaire of Allegheny ; Miss Par- 
manta Sharp, the eminent young American prima donna 
who recently created so great a furore in London musical 
circles, and who is under engagement to sing during the 
coming season in the enormously successful opera "Ratan- 
zoo,'^ by the Russian composer, Joyvitivitch ; Mrs. D'Alroy 
Sebastian Jones, wife of D'Alroy Sebastian Jones, the 
Wall street magnate; and Mr. Sandy McPherson, whose 
philanthropy has amazed two continents. During the trip 
a concert was given in the saloon on the evening of the 12th 
inst., in aid of the Sailors' Widows' Fund, when the munifi- 
cent sum of thirty-two dollars and fifty-two cents was col- 
lected. 



10 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

As the Monocle glided down the gang-plank to be custom- 
officered, The Inflated' s representative caught it in time to 
save it from an inglorious fall over a banana peel which 
had been carelessly thrown on the dock. After expressing 
its profound gratitude that it was saved from a most em- 
barrassing position upon touching for the first time the 
soil of the American continent;, the Monocle, while refusing 
to say anything for publication at present, consented to re- 
ceive The Inflated' s representative later, when a full and 
exhaustive and exclusive opinion of this country may be 
looked for in these columns. 



EEJECTED INTERVIEW 1.— {Impracticable.) 

WEIRD INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE PICKED 
FROM WASTE PAPER BASKET— REPORTERS 
AND EDITORIAL STAFF OF TEE DAILY 
INFLATED KEPT IN HIGHLY NERV- 
OUS STATE— i¥0i\^0(7X^ IS STUB- 
BORN, PRESS INSISTENT. 

"You will really have to excuse me/' said the Monocle 
when seen by a reporter of The Daily Inflated; "the fact is 
I have never given an interview and, while appreciating 
your call, must decline to say anything for publication/' 

"But," interposed Mr. Smart, the newspaperman, "the 
visit to our shores, to our great Republic, of one so ex- 
clusive as yourself has naturally created an incentive to 
study, impartially and without bias, our very own free- 
born as well as those free and easy wards we have as- 
similated even deep in the very vitals of our Nation." 

"You have a great land, have you not?" asked the 
Monocle with an evident desire to dodge the question. 

"That I would, myself, ask you," said the reporter. 

"And very fertile and rich and extensive, is it not?" 
again questioned the Monocle. 

"Really, I prefer to have your opinion and impressions," 
declared the newspaperman; "and while I would disown 
any idea of being personal, may I ask whether you are 
not a wee bit of a cynic ?" 

"There you are in error," declared the Monocle. "I am 
not a morsel cynical. I have implored myself, at least, to 
adopt a cynicism, but said I to myself, ^No! cynicism is 



12 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

tommyrot, cynics are fools and life is too short to believe 
in 'isms/ Why upset the even tenor of my way ?' I ask my- 
self. Then to counteract that very plausible philosophy, 
I ask myself, 'What use even is there in being even ? Be odd 
all the time.' And pursuing further my philosophical strain, 
I conclude that being a Monocle I am decidedly an odd 
number; but, even so, I will reserve to myself the right to 
deny myself the oddity of cynicism. Then, again, I be- 
lieve in charity and self-preservation; for instance, peo- 
ple, I take it, who live in glass houses should refrain from 
bombarding their neighbors' crystal residences with brick- 
bats; nor should a glass eye, nor the glass which focuses 
for a dilapidated eye, attempt promiscuously to use a pea- 
shooter in a throng where glass eyes and eyeglasses are 
mostly conspicuous." 

"Philosophical, I'm sure," agreed the scribe, "but, I 
should esteem it a favor if you would give me your impres- 
sions of this gigantic Country and its National, State, and 
Civic Governments and Statue of Liberty." 

"Ah, young man," declaimed the Monocle with one of 
those austere glances that only a Monocle can assume, 
^'you ask for my impressions ! You, yourself, are capable, 
I am certain, of answering the questions you would put 
to me, and I, therefore, beg of you to give me your own 
impressions of your own country and your own people, your 
own institutions and your own statesmen, your own poli- 
ticians and your own corruptionists and corrupted." 

"My dear Monocle/' replied the newspaperman with a 
show of irritation and a glance at his watch, "you are very 
good, but you will understand that I am here not to give, 
but to take away impressions." 

"Sir," rejoined the Monocle, with an exhibition of dis- 
pleasure and a right flank movement, which brought it in 
such a position with the sun that the reflection almost in- 
jured the sight of The Inflated' fi anxious representative, 



REJECTED la 

"Sir, you warned me that it is your wish to take away im- 
pressions. Now there are many kinds of impressions: 
there is the impression of words, and there is, also, the 
impression of acts. The acts which impress are numerous 
and of varying description. There is the impression made 
by the eye. A sharp, penetrating eye can make a lasting 
record on the soul ; there is the impression made by words. 
A single word can so cut that the lacerated impression on 
the heart can never heal; there is the impression by touch 
or act, otherwise, the abrupt contact of the toe of the boot 
against a portion of the anatomy which, when sufficiently 
forcible, makes an impression long-lasting and that is the 
impression you may carry away.^^ 

"My dear Monocle/' put in the reporter, "you are taking 
on a slight irritation which were it emanating from an- 
other I would not forgive so easily. Again, were I to al- 
low my vitriolic anger full play you would be shattered and 
our friendship could never be repaired.^^ 

The Monocle glared severely, and almost forbiddingly 
at the reporter, who, observing its wrath, came to the con- 
clusion that if he desired to get an interview, he must rub 
the Monocle with a chamois-leather diplomacy. 

"Shake,^' said the newspaperman, extending his hand. 

"Sir,^^ returned the Monocle, satirically, " I cannot allow 
myself to be smeared.'^ 

"You are still on the offensive," said the newspaperman 
in a rather conciliatory tone. 

"I'm on the offensive if you will it so," the Monocle re- 
plied, somewhat tartly. 

"Pardon me, but you are the most aggressive Monocle 
I ever met," declared the newspaperman with a grin. "But 
I like you for it. You who are aggressive are, at least, 
honest." 

"It is good of you to say so much," replied the Monocle, 
"and I applaud your acumen." 



14 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

^Then we are agreed on two points, at any rate," said 
the newspaperman, "and having got so far, will you not 
throw out your reflections?" 

"My dear Mr. Smart, I will throw out nothing, not even 
you," declared the Monocle. 

The newspaperman arose from his seat and made a most 
profound obeisance. 

"Before we go any further," the news-gatherer resumed, 
"will you, my dear Monocle, inform me for the benefit of 
the uninitiated, of your use in the world ?" 

"Certainly," cried the Mo7iocle, "and most readily. Well, 
to commence, I at once admit the honor I feel in being en- 
abled to empty my glass of its acknowledgments of the 
learning which you in your unfathomable intellect as a 
journalist represent," ("Here, here!" from the audience). 
"In you I see represented a vast multitude of brains 
(cheers from the audience) ; the exponent of physiology, 
psychology, physics and philosophy ! In you I behold the 
leader of wars, or I ought to say, you should be the leader, 
since thousands of miles from the field of battle, thousands 
of leagues from the theater of war, far away from the 
geographical eccentricities of the seat of campaign, re- 
mcte from the turbulent thunders of belching, shelling 
cannon and piercing bayonet, unfettered by the chances of 
sudden and terrible attack, you direct, not from the regi- 
mental columns, but from the leaded columns of your on- 
slaughting paper, the tactics that in your supreme judg- 
ment should have been, or should be followed; planning 
out the way to win certain victory by divining the exact 
moment when a skillful movement forward or retreat could, 
can or should, save the honor of the nation. Are you then 
not all wonderful ? Though I am convex I do not magnify 
your value ! I place it before your humble self in its true, 
unmagnified form, knowing well that you hardly ever 
dreamed of your own inestimable importance to mankind. 



REJECTED 16 

(Vociferous cheers from the audience.) Your tactical skill 
in directing an army on the battlefield, thousands of miles 
away from the base of supplies (your supplies being the 
death-dealing, soul-piercing pens, the gory inks and ex- 
plosive paper), would be as heroic as it would be patriotic, 
and successful as it would be startling. I take it as a short- 
sighted piece of business that the government (I am speak- 
ing of no particular government, but of any government) 
should not retain and elect each editor of each metropolitan 
journal and designate him, for instance, ^The War Editor 
Commanding From Afar,^ the same government giving him 
power to pour forth volleys of war-like literature with a 
title such as this: 

MANUAL 
OF THE EDITOR COMMANDING FROM 

AFAR: 

DIRECTIONS ON DISCIPLINE BEFORE 

THE ENEMY AND BEHIND HIM; 

HOW TO MAKE ANY FLANK MOVEMENT 

AND WHEN; 

ADVICE AS TO HOW THE ARMY SHOULD 

SHOOT THE CHUTES 

AS WELL AS THE 

ENEMY; 

SHARP POINTERS AS TO THE BAYONET 

AND ITS ILL USES; 

THE ADVANTAGES OF SMOKELESS POWDER 

OVER CIGARETTE LYDDITE; 

THE WAY TO AVOID BEING CAPTURED, AND 

HOW NEVER TO BE TAKEN BY SURPRISE; 

PROOFS PROVING THAT IF YOU WALK 

INTO THE ENEMY'S ARMS 

IT DOES NOT DENOTE AN AFFECTIONATE 

DISPLAY OF WARFARE; 



16 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

SCHEME FOE CAPTUEING STAMPEDING 

MULES WITHOUT 

PUTTING SALT ON THEIE TAILS. 

"Now, what do you think of that for one reflection?^' 
asked the Monocle. 

"It's a dazzler/' cried the newspaperman. 

"Ah, my dear Mr. Smart, a little while ago you asked 
of what use I am. Now you may have some faint idea. 
You can see I appreciate the military shortcomings of the 
age for one thing, and you must have concluded from my 
remarks that I am the original devisor of a scheme that 
would assure efficient generalship and glory for any army, 
at the same time giving the editors the chance of their 
lives. I mean that in more ways than one: — First: A 
public prominence and the consequent encumbrance of a 
sure and steady income; and second: Immunity from 
actual annihilation while in actual and active command.'' 
(Vehement cheers from the audience.) 

"Have you stopped to consider the possible, nay, prob- 
able, mix-up there would be on the field of battle conse- 
quent upon the diversity and contradiction of orders com- 
ing from so many sources of communication at one and the 
same time?'' asked the newspaperman. 

"Now you are questioning at random and without that 
inspired authority which in your brilliant calling is syn- 
dically your own," declared the Monocle. "It is that very 
contradiction and diversity of orders issued from so many 
and distinctly eccentric and separate sources that must 
prove of inestimable value to the general commanding the 
forces." 

"I am not quite clear on that point," said the newspaper- 
man, much perplexed. 

"Not quite clear !" echoed the irrepressible Monocle 



REJECTED 17 

with a touch of disdain in its tone. "Why, my good sir, 
can^t you see the advantage at a glance?'^ 

"Could I see through the same glass as yourself I might 
then discover the advantage; as it is, I must leave you to 
explain/^ 

"Then, sir, as I before said, the advantage to the army 
would rest entirely in the contradiction of orders emanating 
from the learned editors. The orders from those gentlemen 
would be received on the battle-field thick and fast. No 
two orders would be alike, and as quickly received and 
given so the force would act. Movements would necessarily 
be of the most eccentrically what-are-you-going-to-do-next 
description; for instance: If one editor were to wire to 
move the men forward in solid body while another wired 
retreat, and another advised a right-flank movement, and 
another ordered a march in open order and a charge to the 
north; while others wired to attack on the south, the east 
and west, don't you see that the enemy would become so 
dazed, so perplexed and so rattled, as it were, at the vari- 
ous movements, that they wouldn't know what to do be^ 
cause not knowing what you are going to do T^ 

The reporter reflectively scratched his head. 

"The present mode of warfare is a farce !'' screeched the 
Monocle. "A knows what B is going to do ! He is watch- 
ing him and is quite positive he will come on in this direc- 
tion or that. But if B makes a thousand different moves 
through a thousand different orders from a thousand differ- 
ent editors, A will become so jarred that he won't know 
where he's at. Talk about the famous charge of the Light 
Brigade, the idealized Six Hundred, with cannons to right 
of them, cannons to left of them, cannons in front of them 
and behind them! Pshaw! All that would fade as an 
achievement of the very pleasant past, while the war plan 
which I formulate, or, I should say, which the editors 
would direct, would mean cannons simultaneously on top 

17-2 



18 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

and away from them, bayonets piercing and nnpiercing, 
stampedes and charges, no sooner would a thing be done 
than it would be undone; marches commenced and halted, 
cannons made to roar, then muzzled, no relaxation, shells 
sent whizzing right, left and all directions, on, on ! Move- 
ments continued with increasing vigor, retreats and 
charges, charges and retreats pell mell, then re-charges, out- 
flanking, into the trenches, out again, charges up the moun- 
tain side and retreat to make a flanking movement, then 
a charge up the mountain to the summit and down again, 
the while pouring volleys of bullets and balls into the 
enemy. None must stop but scatter, scatter, scatter, tangle 
and untangle, shoot fire, thunder, thrust, pierce and slash 
until the enemy, or what is left of them, are worn out with 
thinking/^ 

The reporter took a deep breath and still reflectively 
scratched his head. 

"As far as I can see,'' suggested Mr. Smart, "it would be 
all higgledy-piggledy." 

"Good ?' cried the Monocle, "you have it I Mix up the 
army higgledy-piggledy and the enemy must be gloriously 
outwitted r 

"Outwitted,'' agreed the reporter. "That's exactly what 
might be expected from editorial orders — Outwitted !" 

The interview ended there and the reporter went out 
into the open air still reflectively scratching his head. 

When Mr. Smart returned to the editorial sanctum there 
was a war-like discussion, when the Editor-in-Chief was 
heard to say, "Outwitted ! Hem ! Outwitted the enemy ! 
Tush ! The Monocle has outwitted you, sir, and since you 
could not bring in a decent interview with the distinguished 
visitor, from this instant there is a vacancy, sir, on the staff 
of The Daily Inflated r 



REJECTED INTEEVIEW 11.— (Irrelevant) 

THE MONOCLE PEEPLEXES MR. BULLDOZER. 
TAKES A FIRM STAND AGAINST THE USE 
OF HYPODERMIC INJECTIONS OF MOR- 
PHINE AND LAYS THE BLAME OF 
THEIR TOO FREQUENT AND 
OFTEN UNNECESSARY USE 
TO THE DOCTORS. 

The unfortunate reporter having proved his inability to 
bring in the desired interview with the Monocle as to its 
impressions of the United States of America, their Na- 
tional, State and Civic Oovernments and the Statue of 
Liberty, the Editor-in-Chief the following morning as- 
signed the dapper Mr. John Henry Bulldozer to the task of 
drawing from the visitor at least, as he said, a sane talk, a 
comprehensive talk, that would be esteemed by the six mill- 
ion daily readers of The Daily Inflated. 

Bulldozer had been on the distinguished journal some 
years and had gained the confidence of the outside world 
as well as the entire approval of those of the sacred sanctum 
of The Daily Inflated. Indeed, so wrapped up was Bull- 
dozer in the inner workings of social life and so apt was 
every one to confide in him that he was known to his as- 
sociates and colleagues as "the confidence man." 

It mattered little to Bulldozer whether politician or 
patriot, social despot or the monej^ed magnate, archbishop 
or deacon, vestryman or verger, or matron or spinster, he 
would succeed, if on an errand for his paper, in obtaining 
an interview. If refused, he would sternly remind the 
party having the temerity to deny him, that he had no 



20 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

desire to print a garbled version of the story as had been 
told him second hand, therefore, ^twere better to get the 
facts from the fountain head — unpolluted and clear. Who 
would have refused the reporter an interview after pre- 
senting so equitable and philosophical an argument? 

Bulldozer called upon the Monocle. He gave his card 
to a pompous clerk at the desk of the hotel and the pomp- 
ous clerk forthwith sent it to the Monocle through the 
hands and by the grace of an ultra-pompous boy in but- 
tons. 

The Monocle consented to see Mr. Bulldozer. 

"I thought," said the Monocle, after the usual courtesies 
had been exchanged, ^^that a representative of The Inflated 
interviewed me yesterday.'^ 

"Quite so," replied Mr. Bulldozer. "Quite so; but we 
fear he hadn't you quite right. His matter, instead of 
dealing with your valued opinion of the United States of 
America, their National and Civic Governments and the 
Statue of Liberty, merely credited you with a wild and ex- 
travagant account of some war-like suggestions which we 
feared were the result of a brain, his brain, which, last 
summer, suffered from a sunstroke." 

"That interview, sir, I gave, and as I have never ex- 
perienced a sunstroke I conclude that my utterances were 
perfectly sound and normal," replied the Monocle. "You 
have done your colleague an injustice. Can't he be re- 
instated?" 

"No, sir. He's a disappointment. That being so, may 
I ask you now for any conclusions you, of course, have 
come to. concerning these United States of America, their 
National and Civic Governments and the Statue of Lib- 
erty?" 

"Don't 3^ou think it would be rather premature?" asked 
the Monocle. "I have really had so little time to look over 
your continent in the twenty-four hours I have been here." 



REJECTED 21 

"You have been on the soil of the Free and in the home 
of the Brave long enough to form an opinion/' the news- 
paperman answered with an air of sublime authority and 
swelling pride; "and," he continued, "you know how much 
your views would be relished by the six and one-half mill- 
ion readers of The Daily Morning Inflated/' 

"I understood yesterday that your circulation was but 
six million/' said the Monocle. 

"The strides of The Daily Morning Inflated outpace any- 
thing else in the world, sir. It jumped a half million yes- 
terday," declared the newspaperman with a severe and an- 
tagonistically stern air which might have upset the equilib- 
rium of any other but the Monocle. 

"You don't hypo ?" asked the Monocle, looking ax the re- 
porter with a doubtful glance. 

"Hypo?" repeated the newspaperman. "What do you 
mean by hypo?" 

"Pardon my abbreviating/' replied the Monocle; "I 
caught it in the atmosphere. I ought to have said, you do 
not hypodermic?" 

"Hypodermic !" interrupted Bulldozer with a disdainful 
toss of the head which resembled the attitude of a horse 
suddenly pulled up by the curb. "A most extraordinary 
suggestion I am sure," put in Bulldozer. 

"Possibly so," agreed the Monocle. "Many things are 
extraordinary in these days; indeed, it is an extraordinary 
period. While there is much common sense floating around, 
yet the world is being deluged with blithering imbeciles — 
with the irresponsibles and impossibles. But first let me 
say that when I suggested the probable use of the needle in 
your case, it was owing to that half million jump in the 
circulation of The Inflated. Yes, I saw in your assertion 
the eccentricity and extravagance that I have before ob- 
served emanating from a brain under the power of some 
foreign influence." 



22 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

"Then you question my statement ?^^ put in the news- 
paperman with anger. "Eemember, sir, there is nothing 
too great for The Inflated to accomplish. But I am here 
not to argue but to ascertain your view on these United 
States of America, their ]^ational and Civic Governments 
and the Statue of Liberty !" 

"Yes, yes,^' interrupted the Monocle, "having, by asser- 
tion and declaration prompted me on a subject of live im- 
portance — the use of narcotics and all it implies, I, with 
your permission, would like to say a few w^ords on the mo- 
mentous question.'^ 

The newspaperman attempted to speak but the Monocle 
denied him the privilege. 

"On my travels,^^ commenced the Monocle, "I have met 
other dreamers " 

"If you insinuate that I am a dreamer, sir," interrupted 
Bulldozer once more 

"Tut, tut," interrupted the Monocle in turn and with 
a fine show of superior authority; "tut, tut, young man. 
again I repeat that on my travels I have met other dream- 
ers, those, my boy, whose mental extravagances and eccen- 
tricities are due, alone, to the use, one way or the other, 
of hellish drugs. I have gathered data of a most startling, 
if not revolting, nature. I find then that there is a growing 
crime — a wrong that is eating into and sapping the mental 
powers, reducing the glorious strength of body and mind, 
threatening future generations, a habit that is weeding 
out from society many of its best, a pernicious and mur- 
derous enemy, a creepy, ugly thing, that should be arrested 
and sentenced to disuse without delay — I mean, my dear 
Mr. Bulldozer, the indiscriminate use of the hypodermic 
injection, the opiates prescribed by many gentlemen of the 
medical profession in instances where they should never be 
given. I have heard women cry for the insidious needle 
to alleviate the most common and easily treated physical 



REJECTED 23 

pains, and why? Because, in nine cases out of twelve the 
medical practitioner humors his patient to the nse of the 
brain-destroying serpent, and the habit grows, my dear 
Bulldozer, until the most trivial excuse is given for its 
use. How many are there now who are complete mental 
wrecks through that abuse? No, you don't know. Of 
course you don't. The use of the needle is so prevalent to- 
day that thousands having become acquainted with the 
mode of administering the jab, in their privacy, actually, 
and with consummate skill, use it upon themselves. But 
let me say in fairness to the conservative practitioner, that 
I have known many of them to refuse, point blank, to give 
the sought-for ^jab,' and to deplore its use and the craving 
for it where it has grown into a habit. And I have heard 
those same conservative practitioners condemn the skilless 
medical men who have needlessly accustomed their patients 
to its use. Yes, my dear Bulldozer, it is a notorious fact 
that the hypodermic injection of morphine is actually ad- 
ministered just to please the patient. When it becomes 
an appetite, a craving grown from the initial indiscreet and 
needless administrations, the future of the victim is terribly 
dark." 

"My dear Monocle,'' ventured the newspaperman, "I am 
with you on this subject and I, too, deplore the growing evil 
you illustrate, but I came on an errand involving a very dif- 
ferent subject — your view " 

"Mr. Bulldozer," interrupted the Monocle, "you can see 
the importance of my remarks and the caution they are 
intended to convey. We must all deplore this growing 
abuse, a crime that is taking a far-spreading root; indeed, 
it has, I fear, already borne seed that threatens disaster 
by undermining the foundation upon which rests the life 
of many a good soul." 

"Noble sentiments I am sure," said Mr. Bulldozer, "but 
what opinion have you formed about these United States 



24 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

of America, their National and Civic Governments and the 
Statue of Liberty? That is the question," declared the 
newspaperman. 

"And let me warn those who are dangerously near the 
edge of the precipice," continued the Monocle, "those who 
are on the verge of trundling down into the gaping, ugly, 
forbidding chasm; let me warn such of their ultimate fate 
— one of pitiable mental destruction ! And the worst of all 
is the dangerous influence of the ^jab' fiend, who readily 
makes, and apparently lives to make, fiends of others, in- 
viting those who are strangers to the use of the injection 
to try it — consequently, from the pupil grows the adept. 
You would ask me what remedy I have to meet the evil. 
The remedy, Mr. Bulldozer, rests with those who in the 
first place, or instance, employ the drug as a means of allay- 
ing a pain that could be relieved by agencies which are 
harmless, though, possibly, slower in giving the relief 
needed. It is the too ready use of the hypodermic injec- 
tion that we must deplore. It is used in trivial cases and 
in trivial cases it should never be resorted to. In this opin- 
ion every medical man of repute will coincide. At any 
rate it is a question of much moment and a matter, too, 
that should be threshed out in the assemblies of the sons 
of Aesculapius. Let me say here that those medical men 
who unnecessarily administer opiates, are just as deserving 
of public censure and discipline as the gentleman behind 
the bar who continues to concoct strong beverages for his 
customer, when he knows that every extra drink is tending 
to make, a beastly drunkard of him." 

In spite of Mr. Bulldozer's polite, if energetic efforts to 
get a word in edgewise, the Monocle retired with a dig- 
nified "Good night!" Not deigning to take the plebeian 
elevator the Monocle took to the stairs instead and soon 
found itself in its own apartments. Bulldozer was for once 
nonplused. As he watched the retreating steps of the 



REJECTED 25 

Monocle a harsh utterance issued from his lips which rather 
indicated his disappointment. 

"There is no use my manipulating an interview," said he 
to himself as he Journeyed toward the office, "for if I did so 
it would only be contradicted in The High-Strung Lyre/' 

Needless to say, the editorial department of The Daily 
Inflated acted decidedly grumpy when Bulldozer admitted 
his inability to draw out from the Monocle the much 
sought interview. Bulldozer, the cherished hope of The 
Inflated, had at last failed. Every man meets his Water- 
loo some day or other. Hoping to soothe his angered chief 
he handed in copy bearing on the Monocle* s opinion on the 
too prevalent and criminal use of the hypodermic injection, 
but the astonished editors only looked at him askance, and, 
with pity, muttered, "I wonder what number green pill he 
takes.'^ 



REJECTED INTERVIEW 111.— {Inexplicable.) 

THE MONOCLE IS STILL OBSTINATE AND DIS- 
CUSSES MOTHER-IN-LAW INSTEAD OE THE 
U. S. A.— THE REPORTER, SORELY 
TRIED, DISMISSED IN DISGRACE. 

The editors looked wisely doubtful at Bulldozer from that 
fatal moment. Bulldozer, their pet, Bulldozer, their stand- 
by. Bulldozer, their reportorial wonder, had met a set-back ! 
"Had he really given himself up to the use and abuse of a 
drug ?" they asked themselves. "Had he succumbed to the 
pernicious 'dope,^ and, in short, was it possible that he had 
made an egregious ass of himself ?" 

"Bulldozer shall have an opportunity to retrieve his lost 
laurels," suggested the news-editor. 

"I quite agree to that,'^ said the chief editor. 

And John Henry Bulldozer, really innocent of wrong, 
upright as ever, absolutely free from vice of any kind, 
dapper, shrewd, reliable, persistent John Henry was hence- 
forth to work under six pair of compassionate and tenderly 
watchful eyes, eyes that had for years beamed upon him 
with confidence, with gratitude and pride, and with a 
regard that was sublimely paternal. Yes, the editors were 
convinced in their own minds that the morphine craze had 
clearly got into the pride of The Inflated' s reportorial staff, 
and that he, in his dreamy moments, while under its in- 
fluence, had concocted a story relating to the terrible drug, 
and, what was worse, that John Henry had libelously at- 
tributed the weird interview to so great and upright a 
visitor to the free shores of the United States as the ex- 
clusive Monocle; thus placing the commercial gentleman 



REJECTED 27 

who backed The Inflated in jeopardy of a suit for a stupen- 
dous sum. Therefore^, it was with no little fear, having got 
the idea fixed in their infallible editorial heads, that they 
allowed Bulldozer one more chance. They even went so far 
as to consult an eminent medical expert on brain disorders, 
with the object, of course, of examining John Henry as to 
his mental condition. This action the martyr resented but 
in order to hold his position, and being sure that the doc- 
tor would report in his favor, he consented. At the time 
the doctor called to see Bulldozer, it was unfortunate for 
him that he had just come out of a wordy battle v/ith his 
landlady, who had demanded of him a small sum due her 
for room, board, laundry and a few more similar trifles. 
Bulldozer had grown white with rage through her per- 
emptory demand for what was justly due her. In this 
condition, the wise expert unfortunately caught him, and. 
without prior or subsequent knowledge of the righteous 
cause for his excitable and demonstrative anger, made a 
report to the aforesaid editors quite unfavorable to him. 
The doctor declared that he found Bulldozer's pulse high, 
very high; pupils of the eyes dilated, abnormally dilated; 
skin moist, very moist ; hands clammy, sticky and clammy, 
and his state generally, highly and sensitively nervous. 
Bulldozer, declared the learned physician, was unques- 
tionably under the influence of some foreign mental dis- 
turbing agent and he regretted, deeply regretted, after a 
careful examination, to report that the fears of the editors 
were warranted. But John Henry Bulldozer attended the 
assignment and once more sent his card to the Monocle, 
and once more an audience was granted. 

The meeting, so far as the Monocle was concerned, was 
extremely cordial; while Bulldozer, on the other hand, 
evinced a suUenness altogether out of keeping vvith his 
usual manner. 



28 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

"I have come for that interview/^ snapped Bulldozer. "I 
want your views of these United States of America; your 
opinion as to her vast territory and her governments, both 
National, State and Civic; not forgetting the Statue of 
Liberty." 

"Very kind of you, indeed," replied the Monocle, "to put 
yourself out so much. I am deeply indebted to you for 
such consideration." 

The newspaperman showed much irritation. 

"I. looked through your columns this morning but failed 
to find a word of the interview I gave you yesterday," said 
the Monocle. 

"You surely didn't expect to see that matter reported?" 
asked the newspaperman with contempt plainly visible on 
the curve of his upper lip. 

"I really expected nothing," replied the Monocle, "YoUj 
I think it was who expected." 

"And got left," admitted the sagacious newspaperman, at 
the same time showing an unwonted impatience. 

Bulldozer now took from his pocket a roll of copy paper, 
and sitting forward in his chair, pointed the sharp point of 
a pencil at the Monocle, as though he had only to say, "Hi ! 
Presto !" and magically reveal its opinion to the expectant 
public. 

The Monocle was not what one might term hlase; yet 
there was a collected, nonchalant, reposeful air about it 
that plainly indicated its objection to be bored. 

"What was your first impression upon your arrival in 
New York?" asked the newspaperman, the pencil now 
pointed directly on the roll of paper with the object of ac- 
curately recording the valued first impression. 

"I don't know whether you have remarked it," com- 
menced the Monocle, quite ignoring the question, "but 
lovely woman is making great strides in the world; such 



REJECTED 29 

strides, indeed, as to be actually walking all over poor, be- 
nighted man/^ 

Mr. Bulldozer's patience was now almost exhausted. 
Would he ever get the desired interview by fair means or 
must he choke, literally choke, the Monocle into submis- 
sion? Such were the ante-bellum thoughts which beat a 
tattoo on his f orensically anxious brain. 

"Your impressions on approaching the Battery were " 

"Woman,'' interrupted the Monocle, "is said to be the 
loveliest of all creation, and I'm with those who think so, 
who know so and who so declare." 

"When you arrived at the pier, did the deputation ?" 

"She may be dependent upon the man," interrupted the 
Monocle, "whose name she has condescended to adopt, yet 
in her conversation, her public speeches and outward de- 
meanor, what a glorious, Fourth-of-July Independence she 
shows to the world ! The idea of woman is suggested to 
my mind, by Mr. Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty. It seems 
to me that woman today is broader than ever, and stands 
out so prominently as actually to dwarf all else on the 
civilized globe. Now, my dear Mr. Bulldozer, she accepts 
an income from her hubby not for what the income can 
furnish and unfurnish, but simply as a right, and right 
she is every time." 

"Will you tell me how this country compares ?" 

"And," continued the Monocle, "if she chooses to add to 
the fixtures of your household the very ample and invari- 
ably docile domestic pet, the Mother-in-law, who should 
or dare, say 'Nay' to her? Woman's sphere is to-day the 
})0WGr, whichever way you look at it." 

"From what you have seen, do you favor a Eepublic or a 

Mon ?" 

"And, my dear sir," still continued the Monocle, "why 
should there exist a prejudice against the inevitable and 
watchful mother-in-law ? She is, you must admit, brimful 



30 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

of solicitude for the child she has given into the keeping 
of brutal man; and she, having gone through it all, can 
give her daughter points, without which, the young woman 
would, of course, be sublimely happy in her matrimonial 
partnership." 

"Rave you, in your country, political despots; or, as we 
here call them, that is, in the States, 'political bosses ?' " 
asked the newspaperman, who, not having been able to get 
a reply so far, was commencing to show an inclination to- 
wards nervous prostration. 

"I, for one, and though I may stand alone, favor mother- 
in-law," declared the Mofwcle. "The lady, by virtue of 
her relationship to her daughter's matrimonial partner, can 
bring, and can talk more law than a dozen Philadelphia 
lawyers put together; hence the proper designation, 
'Mother-in-law!' She, if she deems it necessary, advises 
separation with an accompanying alimony, or divorce with 
the same appendix-healing balm; which, I may say, has 
no relationship whatever to the vermiform appendix; the 
money-form appendix being of another family, and one 
that requires a peculiar operation, when excision is 
deemed necessary. There must, my dear Mr. Bulldozer, be 
a head to all governments; and the head of the household 
government could not be in more forcible hands than those 
of mother-in-law! She's a wonder, sir; a complete, com- 
plex, enigmatical wonder, whether in the civilized world, 
or in the yet untamed land of the cannibal." 

"Do you believe in this country expanding, otherwise 
colonizing ?" 

"Which reminds me of an incident," interrupted the 
Monocle once more, "that happened during a visit to the 
interior of Fiji, where I had the privilege of meeting King 
Cocoa of the tribe of Mugwumpies." 

"How did the reception of the Boer envoys by ?" 



REJECTED 31 

. "His Majesty," went on the Monocle, cutting Mr. Bull- 
dozer decisively and shortly, "His Majesty had left his 
council chamber at the moment of my arrival, and follow- 
ing in his wake was a fleshy lady, whose age could not be 
seen through the darkness of her skin. She was pleading 
to His Gracious Majesty, but in vain. In a short while, a 
score of lusty, mahogany-fleshed warriors escorted her to be- 
neath two exceeding tall and skeleton-formed trees. In a 
jiffy, two of the stalwarts climbed to the top of the trees, 
and lowered two hempen ropes. With great expedition and 
little demonstration, albeit delicate care, those below twined 
the ropes around the arms and feet of the lady in question. 
She was tenderly hauled up to and placed in a rude hut 
which was planked and held between the trees. ^An ex- 
traordinaiy ceremony,' I thought; and in reply the gentle 
missionarj^, who was by my side, said: 'It is no use at all 
my attempting to chide the king. He will have his way in 
spite of all civilizing efforts. That poor woman is His 
Majesty's mother-in-law.' The explanation is very simple : 
Last night the king held a pow-pow, and, what in the 
language of the Mugwumpies is called a jamboree. The 
feast consisted of all that was most sumptuous — from a 
cannibal standpoint. The captain and the unfortunate 
crew of a sunken vessel had floated to land on kegs of rum. 
You can understand the results. Suffice it to say, that the 
king returned to his palace in a condition bordering on 
overfeeding and intoxication combined. Forthwith he at- 
tempted to, indeed, did actually chaff his solicitous spouse ; 
whereupon his mother-in-law, indignant beyond all bear- 
ing, did chide him much. She is now banished beyond all 
reach and succor other than that which will be mercifully 
delivered up to her by His Majesty's attendants on sev- 
eral occasions during the day. But she is denied com- 
munication with the earth, and must needs pass the re- 
mainder of her days up in an aerial altitude, below which 



32 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

her influences cannot be felt. She is not even allowed a 
megaphone !" 

By this time, Mr. John Henry Bulldozer's face presented 
the appearance of a window pane in a hot-house — beads of 
perspiration trickled down it, and played a game of chase 
thereon. He despaired of ever being able to engage the 
Monocle in. the talk he had suggested. "Had he," he asked 
himself, "lost his grip on mankind ?" Tush, tushing such 
an idea, he decided to pursue his inquiries. 

"Will you, my dear Monocle, kindly give me your opin- 
ion on our Trusts and our so-called Monopolies T' 

"A mother-in-law is a trust and a monopoly; for you 
have to trust her whether you like it or not. She's a 
monopoly, sir, whether you like it or not, for she takes upon 
herself the right and privilege of dictatorship. If you don't 
believe it, get married — have a mother-in-law thrown in, 
and doubt her authority, and see where you'll land. You'll 
disappear from view as quickly as if you had ventured upon 
a quicksand. Mother-in-law is an ornament among your 
household fixtures," continued the Monocle, evidently warm- 
ing up to the subject. "She gives your hearth the semb- 
lance of solidity. How so? I'll tell you. Just drop to 
your butcher, your baker or your candle-stick maker, that 
mother-in-law (never omit the ^in-law') is a member of 
your household and you'll get substantial, unlimited, easy 
credit, and why ? Because your butcher and your baker and 
candle-stick maker are alive to the fact that no mother-in- 
law would dally an instant in the limited or larderless 
household of an impecunious son-in-law! She is, how- 
ever, no different from the rest of the world in preferring 
palaces, mansions and Italian villas with their accom- 
panying luxuries and wealth of surrounding. I have had 
a few mothers-in-law, and, speaking from experience, 1 
can say of her that she is a wonder ! I wouldn't be with- 
out one. On all matters domestic she's a cellar-to-roof en- 



REJECTED 33 

cyclopedia ! Ask anyone who is blessed with one. She 
knows how to arrange, distribute, disburse, dismantle, 
build, wreck, piece (do not read this Peace), patch, dash, 
smash, veneer, domineer, demand, subdue, imbue and make 
the very household creak, shake, tremble from the founda- 
tion up ! She offers to advise and devise ; plot and plan, 
and, as she says, all for the best. For instance : If you are 
permitted the blessing of a couple or so of infants, she, 
mother-in-law, can, I should say, will, advise as to their 
training ; indeed, at the risk of a wholesale upset, will take, 
or attempt to take, by threat or force, that matter into her 
own hands. You haven't a word to say in that trivial affair, 
any more than in any other domestic controversy. She 
releases you from worry on that score, and, upon my honor, 
you ought to be much obliged. She's a brick ! If you sug- 
gest the emplo3anent of a fair typewriter or a dark type- 
writer, a sallow typewriter or any complexion of a type- 
writer, in your office, mother-in-law will show your wife, 
her daughter, the inadvisability of employing the lady. 
Why? For the very simple reason, that being of a saving 
nature, she thinks one lady in the family quite enough. If 
your wife, her daughter, complains to her of any inatten- 
tion on your part, she elects herself arbiter, and gives her 
final decision against you, no matter how much in the right 
you may prove yourself to be. You must yield — YIELD ! 
And since there is no higher court to take it to, unless it is 
the divorce court (a retreat very much frequented of late 
years), the only thing left you to do, is to throw up the 
sponge. She has you, my boy, on every point. She's an 
iron-clad contract. When she puts her foot down, toe the 
line! There's nothing else left you to do. Just toe the 
line! Don't attempt to perform any stunts — she won't 
stand for them. With these few remarks, I'll bid you a very 
good day.'^ 

33-3 



34 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

And the Monocle disappeared, leaving Mr. Bulldozer 
utterly nonplused. 

Once again he returned to the editorial sanctum, and 
once again he admitted his inability to interview the 
Monocle regarding these United States of America, their 
K'ational and Civic Governments and the Statue of Lib- 
erty. 

There was a red hot conference between Mr. Bulldozer 
and his editors; whereupon the unhappy reporter humbly 
ventured to remark that he was prepared to write up the 
Monocle's valuable views on mother-in-law. The chief, 
thinking it all a dream, abruptly and finally dismissed the 
young man from their presence. 



EEJECTED IMTEEVIEW lY.— (Illusive.) 

THE EDITOE-IISr-CHIEF VISITS THE MONOCLE, 

HIS QUESTIONS DEXTEROUSLY DODGED 

AND THE MONOCLE GETS ONTO 

THE AUTOMOBILE. 

Doubted, fallen from grace, subjected to peremptory ex- 
pulsion from the honored staff of The Daily Inflated, with 
a stain on his escutcheon of one given to the use of opium 
or morphine, poor, misjudged Bulldozer retired to his 6x4 
room to ponder over his shattered reputation. Mr. Eben- 
ezer Spikem, the Editor-in-Chief, now determined to inter- 
view the stranger, and on the morrow, did himself repair 
to the palatial hostelry. 

Mr. Spikem met the Monocle just as it was about to leave 
for a burr in an automobile. Placing his card and himself 
in front of the visitor he begged for a few moments' talk. 
The Monocle, with much gallantry, bowed the august 
editor to the smoking-room and became attentive and in- 
terested. 

"I have ventured to call upon you in view of the negli- 
gence and utter disinterestedness of two of our reporters, 
whom I venture to think, have not even seen you; to in- 
terview you and glean your valued impressions of these 
United States of America, their National and Municipal 
Govermnents and the Statue of Liberty.'' 

The Monocle assured Mr. Ebenezer Spikem that it had 
really seen his representatives. Mr. Spikem, thereupon, 
raised his bushy brows with a co-mingling of surprise and 
sorrow. 



36 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

"This is, I believe, your first visit to the United States T' 
questioned Mr. Spikem. 

"The use of the automobile in your city is a matter for 
consideration/^ said the Monocle with absolute indifference 
so far as Mr. Spikem^s question was concerned. 

The editor, neverthless, emitted a self-satisfied cough 
and felt that he, the Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Inflated, 
had at last succeeded in pinning the Monocle to something 
tangible. 

"While comparisons are odious," said the editor, "I 
should, nevertheless, like you to give me your unbiased 
views on this continent and inform the general public 
where we, in your estimation, excel over all other countries." 

"As you saw, I was just about to take my morning elec- 
tric-propelling. The question of the hour is: ^Has the 
automobile come to remain ?' " 

"What first struck you on your arrival ?" 

"A cable car," promptly replied the Monocle. "But, re- 
ferring to the subject of automobilism, I can but conclude 
that the horse has at last been enabled to assert its vast 
superiority." 

"You, of course, noticed our Statue of Liberty?" in- 
quired Mr. Spikem. 

"Liberty ! What a glorious word, but what a multitude 
of crimes against humanity it protects. Like an umbrella 
in the rain, the wet will bespatter you no matter how large 
it is and though you live under the sheltering wings of 
Liberty, despotism, money-despotism, injustice and ras- 
cality will find a way to sneak in and contaminate and cor- 
rupt and degrade and unidealize. Eeverting to the auto- 
mobile, it does not say that because I am in one that I favor 
the mechanical perambulating in preference to the whole- 
some and invigorating spin and pleasure, which result from 
the driving of a spanking team. Oh, dear no ! One misses 
the forward movement of a horse; the clicking of the 



REJECTED 37 

hoofs; the proud step and noble mien of the handsome 
animal. Instead, the automobile gives you the impression 
that you are being sent along, whereas human nature loves 
to be drawn along. It is against man's will to be shunted, 
as it were. He doesn't like to be pushed, whether it's to 
the wall or his natural destination. He prefers to be led, 
for man, since the inauguration of masculinity, has de- 
pended upon a leader, whether in domestics, politics, society 
or vehicle. You put an engine at the rear end of a train 
and you won't like it a bit. But let that engine draw you 
and you are satisfied. Put a bucket down a well, and it 
would kick if it were pushed up instead of being drawn 
up. That same bucket would, certainly, rebel against any 
such proceeding, were it attempted. It is the natural in- 
clination of everything and everybody to be drawn, as much 
as it is to draw your breath. A dentist would never think 
of pushing out a tooth — he draws it ! The banker expects 
you to draw — any other means of obtaining your money 
would be resented. The theatrical star draws his audience ; 
and his company, when it's in luck, its salary. That same 
company would never think of adopting means to push its 
salary, no matter however inclined to do so. It is the nat- 
ural bent of humanity to draw and be drawn; therefore, 
do I prophesy the absolute failure of the auto because of its 
being a non-drawing power. When a dainty, fair, sweet 
girl makes up her mind to win you, does she push you along 
to the happy conclusion? No, sir; she simply draws you 
out, and there you are ! You vnW often hear, in your walks 
and your talks, a man, v/hile admitting his misfortune, say : 
'I was drawn into it.' Now, when making the admission 
that he was *^drawn' into it, you have never in your life no- 
ticed a scowl of reproach, though there might be a visible 
facial shadow of sorrow, for the very good reason that he 
had been *^drawn' into his unhappy predicament. On the 
other hand, you never yet heard a man admit that he was 



38 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

'pushed^ into his ill-luck unless lie showed dangerous and 
precipitate signs of dropping dead from sanguineous apo- 
plexy. To be ^pushed' and to be 'drawn' are two very dif- 
ferent means of going ahead. The one savors of relentless 
force; while the other, at least, bears the earmark of per- 
suasion. The horse 'draws' you — you persuade him to do 
so — and the automobile carries you by force, sir, sheer and 
unmitigated, stored-up battered force! There's the rub. 
And so it is with political parties, — let one or the other of 
the leaders go behind and shove his party, and the whole 
thing is reversed, for the leader becomes the follower and 
the followers the leaders ; and all through being shoved or 
pushed or propelled, showing conclusively and at once that 
my argument is incontrovertible. Leaving politicians for 
that other weird and strange creature of impulse, the mule, 
you can again see the inadvisability of rear-end propelling. 
Lead a mule and he'll follow you with the docility of a 
dove ; but venture to 'push' him, and you'll occupy a cot in 
the emergency ward of some hospital, if not a spare slab in 
the Morgue." 

The Monocle having had its sa}^, politely but hurriedly 
bade Mr. Ebenezer Spikem a very good morning, and, 
jumping into the auto, was electrically 'pushed' along. 



EEJECTED INTERVIEW Y,— {Incongruous.) 

MR. SPIKEM'S TROUBLES COME THICK AND 
FAST, WHILE THE MONOCLE, INTER- 
VIEWED BY MR. INKEY, SPEAKS ON 
TRAVEL, AND VOLUNTEERS USEFUL 
ADVICE FOR THE EDITOR^S EDI- 
FICATION AND BENEFIT. 

Mr. Spikem looked after the visitor as it was being 
whirled away, and on the curb-stone he pondered. He was 
heard to mutter, "Well, I'll be hanged !" or something to 
that effect. It is quite certain that he said he'd be some- 
thinged. His journey to the editorial department was one 
of worry. There he met his colleagues, who instantly re- 
marked his changed appearance, his dejected demeanor, his 
utter and weird strangeness. Mr. Spikem exhibited a large 
amount of oozing irritation. He frankly admitted his in- 
ability to get the interview he wanted, and gave his asso- 
ciates instead the purport of the Monocle* s remarks on the 
automobile, which seemed so extraordinary that the worthy 
gentlemen looked upon Spikem with suspicion. They knew 
he had been a total abstainer from spirituous liquors for 
some years; but, nevertheless, they always nursed a dread 
that he might return to the habit which had at one time 
threatened his standing in the community. They knew 
that Mr. Spikem in those days was a terror and they had, 
therefore, good cause to offer up many blessings for his 
self-denial in adopting the new life which he had deter- 
mined upon and enjoyed for twenty years. Alas, now they 
feared he had tasted once more of the cup that inebriates. 



40 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

and they commenced to look around the office for some evil 
spirit, or influence, that may have been working ill among 
their staff, both editorial and reportorial. While they al- 
lowed the worthy gentleman the privilege to write the 
Monocles views on the automobile they coaxed him, when 
he had completed his task, to relegate the copy to the waste- 
paper basket, and, consequently, the readers of The Daily 
Inflated were saved from the perusal of matter which 
might have been prejudicial to the stocks of the Interna- 
tional Automobile Carry-All Company, that had been 
placed on the market with most gratifying results that 
very week. 

Mr. Spikem was advised to go home and rest. Mr. 
Spikem resented the suggestion. He grew hot, and the 
hotter he grew the more certain were his colleagues that he 
had been imbibing. To their horror, he actually damned 
the Monocle for the trouble it had given him, as well as for 
the unwarranted disaster it had brought upon two trusted 
members of the reportorial staff. That was enough ! He 
was even defending a couple of men who had proved them- 
selves totally unfit to be further entrusted with the con- 
fidence of their editors. His colleagues, Mr. Stunts and 
Mr. Inkey, now had no doubt in their minds. Mr. Eben- 
ezer Spikem, they concluded, was a lost lamb. In secret 
conclave, they therefore decided the best means to over- 
come the threatened ruin of their chief, and the two well- 
meaning gentlemen quickly scoured the editorial library 
for books on temperance, obtained tracts on temperance, 
purchased brochures on the "Habit of Imbibing Spirituous 
Liquors and the Speedy Cure;" paid out good money for 
other works dealing with the terrible effects of liquor, and, 
finally, buying a dramatic version of "Ten Nights in a Bar 
Eoom," deposited the lot on Spikem's desk where he found 
them that very evening. 



REJECTED 41 

Thinking that the temperance literature had been sent 
him for review, he took them up one by one, but discovering 
that it was all ancient matter, and still irritated, shied each 
book and tract across the room. Cruel fate was playing all 
kinds of game with Spikem, for one book finally landed on 
a valuable statue of George Washington, smashing off the 
head and shattering one leg. 

Never before had that sacred sanctum presented so dis- 
turbed an appearance. When Mr. Spikem left for the night, 
the office boy, fearing that he might be blamed for it all, 
diplomatically requested the remaining editors to step in 
and review the debris. They were stricken as with palsy. 
That their co-laborer had so far forgotten himself as to use 
the books as missiles was to them a horror to contemplate. 
They looked with pain on the demolished figure of the 
Father of their Country, and declared that were it not for 
his unhappy and irresponsible condition, Mr. Ebenezer 
Spikem ought to be tried and hanged for treason. 

As a result of a decision arrived at by these two worthy 
gentlemen, one of them, Mr. Nebuchadnezzar Inkey, called 
on the Monocle the next day. 

"Stop,^^ cried the Monocle, as Mr. Inkey commenced his 
questioning. ^^I^d like to ask you how many men have you 
on your interviewing staff ? Whether you keep one for each 
day in the year, and as to what the devil the public cares 
for my opinions or impressions ?'^ 

"A necessity is hardly debatable,^' rejoined Mr. Inkey. 

"Do you find then that an interview with an utter 
stranger is a necessity to the peace of mind of the public ?" 
asked the Monocle, 

"As essential to the capacity of our readers as their daily 
meals,^^ replied Mr. Inkey. 

"Gracious !" exclaimed the Monocle. 

"Yes,'^ said Mr. Inl^ey, "it is peculiar to say the least, 
but: 



42 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

Without their interviews folks would pine, 
They'd neither breakfast, sup nor dine ; 

And so they get 'em, more or less, 
Served up by the daily press." 

poetized Mr. Inkey, whose grave fault was his habit of 
bursting out into his own original verse, which, in every 
instance, proved to be idiotic and asinine. 

"I may mention, incidentally," continued Mr. Inkey, 
"that those lines are my own. I never quote. No man has 
any more right to use another man's verse than he has to 
take the cigar out of another man's mouth and smoke it. 
If men with a limited capacity for originality, resort to 
the mental exudations of others, then, I say, they ought to 
pay for the matter they use : 

If you take another man's rhyme 

And you use it as you will it. 
Deserves that every time 
For royalty he should bill it. 

Don't you think that equitable ?" asked Mr. Inkey. 

"Quite right, sir," agreed the Monocle. 

Mr. Inkey sat well back in his chair and looked wisely 
at the Monocle as one prepared to bounce upon a subject, 
sure in his mind that he would get the answers he desired. 

"Our abnormally high buildings of course somewhat 
surprised you on your arrival," suggested the wily editor. 

"Now, I wouldn't take you, Mr. Inkey, to be a man who 
indulged himself in surprises," said the Monocle, with an 
evident determination to evade answering any question 
whatsoever. 

Mr. Inkey looked at the Monocle with some astonishment. 

"Indeed, I can't say that I am ever surprised," rejoined 
the editor. 

"I thought not," agreed the Monocle. 



REJECTED 43 

''The political horizon of Europe still presents somewhat 
of an ominous shadow, and England, as regards the East- 
ern question, is, as ever, on the alert, I take it from the 
cable messages?" 

Mr. Inkey used every means at his command to wheedle 
an interview from the Monocle. The Monocle saw his 
drift. 

"Possibly our city government has appealed to you as 
being somewhat unique?" suggested Mr. Inkey, with an- 
other attempt to rout the enemy from its apparently im- 
pregnable position. 

"Have you traveled much?" asked the Monocle, ignor- 
ing Mr. Inkey's question. 

"I am loath to admit it, but I am not a traveled man," 
said Mr. Nebuchadnezzar Inkey, as he drew his handker- 
chief across his brow, — the humiliation of such a forced 
admission having had the effect of producing a moisture 
upon his ample forehead. 

"A sea voyage, I venture to say, would do you a world 
of good," said the Monocle, 

"But I am not actually in need of such recreation," de- 
clared Mr. Inkey. 

"You are, sir," urged the Monocle with no little force. 
"Everybody should travel. It's a duty one owes, not alone 
to one's self, but to those less fortunate who are unable to 
enjoy the inestimable blessing and radiant charm of it. 
Travel, Mr. Inkey, is an educator, a broadener of the mind, 
a luxury for the eye. The very birds of foreign countries 
make new and beautiful music for the ear. The peoples, 
too, are, in their strangeness to you, a lesson for deep con- 
sideration. Their methods of living and their advancement 
in all that is best, prove to you that each country has its 
own aspirations and liberty-loving characteristics; its 
grand and costly educational institutions, which, by the 
way, exist, sir, as you know, even in those countries where 



44 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

by the unread and untraveled it is imagined there is no 
progress whatsoever. Liberty, to-day, sir, rules, and, heaven 
be thanked, there is a plenty of it in every clime, save, of 
course, where heathenism and fanaticism exist. Travel, 
alone, convinces one of the vast progress of the whole civ- 
ilized world, and further, of the civilizing influences which 
each good Christian, God-fearing country brings to bear 
on those who are living in darkness. The tourist opens his 
eyes to behold nature in all its varied and exquisite beauty 
and grandeur. You seem with each step to awake from a 
slumber. As the dextrous conjurer surprises you with his 
subtle revelations so does each country, each foreign locality, 
amazingly reveal to you a marvelous panorama of life, 
buildings, architectural cunning, sea-scape and landscape, 
fashion and passion, art and music, ability in every calling 
and profession, wealth and contentment, the highest social 
attainments, ancient relics beside the most approved and 
admired of modern inventions. Often have I stood aghast, 
when men of supposed intelligence have declared in my 
hearing that their own little city was good enough and 
plenty large enough, and finish up by saying, ^You can't 
show us a better place to live in than this, sir — the great- 
est city in the world.' Actually the poor chaps, on being 
questioned, admitted that they had never seen more than 
three cities, and small cities at that, by which to make a 
comparison. While admiring such men for their loyalty 
to their native villages, yet one cannot but deplore the limi- 
tation of their ideas and the insular disadvantages to which 
they are subjected. If, my dear Mr. Inkey, a man grows 
up on a potato patch you may tell him of a rose garden, 
but he only knows and appreciates potato patches ; in short, 
it is his world. Travel, sir, has been the means of making 
brilliant men of dunces, has inculcated in man that great 
factor of success — self-reliance. It has brought out the 
best, that was before wasting; it acts as a magic spell in 



REJECTED 45 

developing the weakling into a robust, thinking, large- 
minded monument of humanity. One may well sigh for 
those poor creatures who can, but will not take the oppor- 
tunities to see the Great Creation at large. Inkey, my boy, 
take the advantage while you have the chance. If you de- 
termine to travel any time between this and your death, it 
might be well for you to take a few scruples of my advice.'^ 

^'Gladly," agreed Mr. Inkey, "but, before going so far, I 
should like to ascertain your opinion of these United States 
of America, their National and Civic Governments and Mr. 
Bartholdi^s Statue of Liberty.^' 

Totally ignoring Mr. Inkey's interruption, or anything 
he would like to know, the Monocle proceeded : "The un- 
tried traveler, my dear Mr. Inkey, is a character study. 
While he is a frequent occurrence, he is, nevertheless, 
unique. He is a model for the humorist by virtue of his 
monumental assertiveness. He boards a vessel to commence 
with, rigged out in the highly proper traveling suit as de- 
vised and advised by his tailor. That at once gives him the 
air of one who has traveled and knows the ropes, while every 
step he takes is a stamping advertisement that he is a man 
of opulent circumstances and so forth. As he waves good- 
bye to the numerous ladies, gentlemen, youths and babies 
who have swarmed to see him off, he, pardonably, imagines 
himself the most important of his fellows. He accepts the 
very odorous, albeit imbecile, gifts of floral ships and floral 
anchors that go to increase his satisfaction and pride. 
Straightway he encounters the captain to ascertain from 
his official lips the number of knots the vessel can do in a 
day; what he considers the best remedy for seasickness; 
whether they will meet whales, rocks and icebergs, derelicts 
and other possible obstacles and dangers. He struts the 
main deck with an air of grave importance and is delighted 
with the steamer and his tourist costume, and becomes ac- 
tually vain when beholding that he is even observed. He 



46 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

determines upon being genial and decides to chum in with 
anybody and everybody. Knowing a little about civil engi- 
neering he grows anxious to examine the machinery. His 
great grandfather having invented a compass some hundred 
years before, one may forgive him if he nurses a desire to 
study the vessel's instruments. His mother's father, he re- 
members, had been a ship's chandler in his youth, and, 
consequently and suddenly, it crosses his mind to inform the 
officers at once of that very important fact, so as to prove his 
relationship to the seafaring fraternity. An uncle on his 
lamented father's side, — it just occurs to him, — supplied the 
outgoing ships with provisions; and he begins to pon- 
der on the advisability of discovering the situation of the 
kitchen, that he may so inform the cook, who will surely 
then send to his table extra dainties and tender meats.'' 

Here Mr. Inkey tried to arrest the attention of the Mon- 
ocle by looking at his watch, but that was no time for the 
Monocle to allow even a word to intervene between his nar- 
rative and anything that might occupy the mind of the 
anxious Inkey. 

"You wonder " resumed the Monocle. 

'^I regret to break the current of your valued thoughts," 
interrupted Mr. Inkey, "but as we want your interviews 
for to-morrow's issue I beg you to give me your impres- 
sions of " 

The Monocle simply cut Mr. Inkey clean off from the 
question uppermost in his mind. 

"It should be the one desire of a traveler to make it 
pleasant for his fellow-tourists," continued the Monocle. 
"At no time should he grumble at the playful antics of the 
-dear children aboard. If they jump all over him he must, 
or should, accept the situation with equanimity; offer, if 
need be, to relieve the unattended mother of her scream- 
ing offspring; read aloud to the old ladies; tend the young 
widows ; give an arm to the winsome lasses who have not yet 



REJECTED 47 

got their sea-legs; hasten below, though a thousand times 
a day, for rugs and shawls ; apply to chubby noses , Grecian 
noses, or Eoman noses, the inevitable and restoring smelling 
salts on occasions of qualms; supply and apply restoratives 
to the fainting lady; consent to become converted into a 
human ambulance as far as her cabin door; play all the 
games common aboard vessel no matter though they are 
stupid, irksome and ridiculous; rush for the ship's doctor 
no matter how frequent or how unnecessary the request, or 
how much you may interfere with that gentleman's com- 
fort ; see that he attends the summons no matter how trivial 
the case or how close you get to having your head punched. 
Appear to enjoy the sarcasm of the idiot at the dinner 
table; don't growl if the steward carelessly lets a plate of 
soup fall down your back, for the very good reason that 
some ship's soup is better taken externally than internally ; 
get on the amusement committee and, for the amusement of 
others, work yourself sick. When you see a porpoise as- 
sure the ladies that it is a whale, thereby establishing your- 
self a man learned in marine mysteries and wonders ; study 
up and memorize an assortment of sea yarns and spin them 
off, preferably before luncheon, since at that season few 
people are sleepy ; give up your very own deck chair to the 
fair charmer who covets it;- cover her with your rug and 
be ready to break your neck to do other little pleasantries 
for her, though she will ignore you when she lands. When 
you meet the captain, flood him with questions such as: 
'Isn't it a dull or humid day? Is the vessel making or 
breaking her record time, and do you think you blow the 
horn often enough during a fog? Do you think we shall 
arrive on time, or do you think we shall be lat^ ? Are you 
married, Captain? Oh, how very nice; and how many 
children have you? Doesn't your wife travel with you? 
Really, it's very wrong of companies not to allow their 
officers the privilege of having their possessions with them ! 



48 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

How often have you made the trip ? Ever been in a wreck ? 
Suppose the vessel collided with another in mid-ocean what 
would become of us ? Is drowning an easy death ? Some 
say it is, but, truly, is it?' 

"By paying the attentions enumerated to your fellow- 
passengers and plying the captain with the questions pro- 
pounded, you will grow in prominence. I will not say what 
caliber of prominence, but you will grow, and your voyage 
will be one of peace and delightful recollections. Never 
forget that the captain yearns for just the questions I have 
suggested. He is a glutton in his desire to be questioned; it 
is part of his life, that is why he is there. When you see 
him on the bridge it is because he fears that he hasn't any 
more answers left to give; sooner than disappoint he re- 
tires. It would be an admirable idea, my dear Mr. Inkey, 
were vessels to carry at least two captains, — one to attend 
to his business and the other to reply to the interrogations 
of the everconstant, indefatigable and irrepressible ladies 
and gentlemen who feel it incumbent on them to look upon 
the captain as an Intelligence Department. With these 
few remarks, and anticipating that you will travel to be 
heard of one day as a second Henry Stanley or Livingstone, 
I will take my leave." 

The Monocle shot out of the room leaving Mr. Nebuchad- 
nezzar Inkey all at sea. Its volubility on nautical affairs 
had, as a matter of fact, made the editor's head swim and 
he emerged into the open air in as rocky a condition as 
though he were walking a deck in a tempest. 



REJECTED INTERVIEW YL— {Impossible.) 

MR. INKEY ARRIVES AT HIS OFFICE MINUS IN- 

TERVIEW, CAUSING CONSTERNATION BY 

REASON OF HIS VERY NAUTICAL 

BEARING. 

Mr. Inkey announced his own arrival at his own office 
by singing a sailor song as he entered, entitled "On San 
Francisco Bay/' to the consternation of the methodical 
bookkeeper and army of clerks in the commercial depart- 
ment of The Daily Inflated. 

Mr. Inkey was never known in their recollection to in- 
dulge in song, and when the head of that department first 
turned a deathly pale and then changed to an apoplectic 
crimson, the surprise Mr. Inkey caused can be fully real* 
ized. 

Reaching the sanctum sanctorum he greeted his col- 
league, Mr. Stunts, with an "Ay, ay, sir V and pulling up 
his trousers from the hips in sailor fashion he growled in 
stentorian voice, "Heave to V' 

At that unfortunate moment the depressed Mr. Spikem 
entered, in time to join in Mr. Stunts^ visible agitation and 
fear. Such a proceeding on the part of the dignified Inkey 
was to them unaccountable, unless he had taken sudden 
leave of his senses. 

He mumbled something about travel and proper ques- 
tions to put to a sea captain and ended by dancing the 
sailor's hornpipe ! He went through the pantomime of 
climbing the rigging, saluting and hauling the ropes as 
performed by dancers on the variety stage, or in nautical 

49-4 



50 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

musical comedy. It was a sportive, if even to his con- 
freres it seemed a melancholy, spectacle. It suddenly 
dawned upon Mr. Stunts that Mr. Inkey had victoriously 
succeeded in getting the desired interview with the Monocle, 
and in his delirium of joy was merely giving vent to his 
satisfaction. 

"Aha, aha !" ejaculated Stunts, "I see it all ! You have 
the interview !" 

"I have nothing of the kind," growled Inkey as he 
dropped exhausted and panting into a chair. 

"You have not?" cried the two editors. 

"Certainly I have not," responded Inkey, "but I have an 
admirable disquisition from the Monocle on travel, with 
invaluable suggestions which will be relished by our hun- 
gry readers." 

Inkey then rolled out almost word for word all that the 
Monocle had said. 

"But, my dear Inkey, that matter is totally irrele- 
vant," declared Stunts, with some degree of warmth 
in his tone. "Why in heaven didn't you get what we need, — 
the Monocle's impression of these United States of Amer- 
ica, our National and Civic Governments and our Statue of 
Liberty ? That is what you went for !" 

"And that," replied Inkey, "is what I didn't get." 

Stunts made up his mind that Inkey was suffering from 
temporary mental disturbances, which opinion became the 
more certain when he arose, now restored to normal breath- 
ing, and, crossing the room, shook Spikem by the hand, 
accompanying the action with expressions of sympathy with 
the surprised gentleman. 

Stunts looked with concern first at Spikem and then at 
Inkey. In his mind he turned over the scene performed 
by Spikem the previous evening, as compared with the sad 
condition of poor Mr. Inkey that moment. To the one he 
attributed a return of the drinking habit, while to the other 



REJECTED 51 

he blamed a possible hereditary insanity which was taking 
effect by quick process. Strange, too, but even Mr. Spikem 
looked with pity on Inkey, whose antics were such as could 
not be indulged in by a sane editor. 

"I saw and regret/' said Spikem, in a melancholy tone, 
*^'the destruction and smash-up of George Washington last 
evening.'' 

"Ah, indeed, sir ; I doubt if Washington in all his career 
ever received such a blow," added Mr. Stunts, tartly. 

The stand-off and studied courtesy of Mr. Stunts simply 
knocked Spikem off his legs. Upon recovering himself he 
let every particle of his twenty-four-hour-pent-up wrath 
flow out. He indulged in vituperation, and ended by tell- 
ing Stunts that if he knew better than he how to get an 
interview from such an unwilling source as the Monocle, 
he should try without delay. Stunts was certain now that 
Spikem had not fully overcome his debauch. Then came 
Mr. Inkey to the aid of Mr. Spikem and, suffering from 
what he considered very cool behavior on the part of Mr. 
Stunts, agreed that if the latter gentleman was so blamed 
positive about it he had better try himself. The gauntlet 
defiantly hurled at the admirably-booted feet of Mr. Stunts, 
that gentleman, without delay, took up the challenge. But 
how deeply his heart ached to see his colleagues in such a 
mental plight the public will never know. So keen was 
his appreciation of the mental breaking down, especially in 
the case of Mr. Inkey, that on his way home he made it his 
business to call upon that gentleman's good lady. 

"Mrs. Inkey," said he, "the subject of my visit is of 
painful moment." 

Mrs. Inkey, a good creature with an unfortunate dispo- 
sition to anticipate evil, screeched out in hysterical yells, 
"Oh, Mr. Stunts, don't say that anything has happened my 
Nebuchadnezzar ! Don't tell me that he has passed away ! 
Oh, I knew something was going to happen when Josie, 



52 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

our favorite tabb}^, sneezed itself into a cataleptic fit this 
morning I" 

Before Mr. Stunts could say a word to relieve the anxiety 
of the lady, the cat, to which she had referred, made a 
bound into the room, took one leap onto the mantelpiece, 
knocking over and smashing an exquisite and costly clock 
of Parisian manufacture ; then, turning a backward somer- 
sault onto the floor, lay as stiff as a pine log. That was 
sufficient evidence, that second fit of Josie's in one day, that 
something terrible had really happened her husband, and 
with a multiplication of successive shrieks, she, herself, fell 
heavily onto the floor and the cat at the same time. One 
ominous squeak from the cat, as the lady fell upon it, 
startled Mr. Stunts, who at once, and humanely, endeavored 
to relieve the animal of its burden. Mrs. Inkey was a very 
weighty lady, consequently the editor found the removing 
business no easy matter. At last, with a mighty effort the 
fragile little gentleman succeeded in rolling Mrs. Inkey 
over, but, to his horror, the cat was as flat as a pancake. 
He called for assistance and it came in the form of a 
wheezy, wizen servant, who, on entering the room and see- 
ing the state of affairs, started in screaming for "Help !" 
at the top of her asthmatic voice and then set to calling out 
"Murder !" in spite of the vehement assurance of Mr. Stunts 
that there was no murder other than her mistress's unin- 
tentional asphyxiating and flattening out of the cat. No 
talk, no persuasion, could pacify Amangolina Ann, who, 
without one word of warning, simply kicked up her heels 
and lay in a heap at the feet of her mistress. Stunts was 
most thoroughly frightened. He stood paralyzed and when 
able to collect himself concluded that the best thing to do 
was to summon a doctor. Off he rushed, hatless and breath- 
less, in search of a medical man. He had not been gone 
many minutes when Mr. Inkey himself returned home. 
Once, twice, thrice he rang, and failing to be let in, a 



REJECTED 63 

most extraordinary circumstance, he scrambled through the 
sitting room window ; when chaos met his eye. There lay, 
prostrate, probably dead, his wife, his maid servant and 
his flattened-out cat; while fragments of his once hand- 
some clock were strewn around the hearth in small par- 
ticles. All he could see was murder — an atrocious tragedy 
for pelf. He fell at the feet of his wife and between en- 
dearing words and entreaties to speak but a word, he vented 
a wholesale condemnation of an inefficient and political 
police force. 

In another moment Mr. Inkey had reached the police 
call and summoned by that means the minions of the law, 
but through a fatal mistake, he, also, called up the fire de- 
partment. Almost with the arrival of the doctor, in com- 
pany with the hatless Mr. Stunts, came both fire engines 
and hose companies, police and reporters, fire captains and 
heads of the police department, excited neighbors and 
others, whose craning necks could not discover even smoke. 
The scene around the house was pandemonium and the oc- 
currences were fortunate, if unfortunate, for it was due to 
the bursting of a hose brought through the sitting-room 
window, that Mrs. Inkey, her servant and her flattened-out 
cat came to visible life once more. As she was being soaked 
by the water, Mrs. Inkey turned completely over and went 
through the graceful motions of swimming. An admiring 
audience declared her strokes to be perfectly artistic. Were 
it not for the sadness of the affair the sight of such a per- 
formance by such a corpulent lady might have been amus- 
ing. Amangolina Ann and Josie favored the awe-stricken 
spectators with a series of convulsive evolutions and then 
came to a realization that the world was still revolving. 
The explanation was such as to open a terrific and un- 
fordable breach between Mr. Inkey and Mr. Stunts, for the 
latter had been compelled to admit that his presence in his 
friend's house that night was to warn the good Mrs. Inkey 
of the possible, indeed probable, insanity of her husband. 



REJECTED INTERVIEW YIL— (Inapplicable.) 

THE MONOCLE STARTS ON A JOURNEY. 
THROUGH THE UNITED STATES— MR. 
STUNTS INTERVIEWS VISITOR AT 
STATION— THE MONOCLE PHIL- 
OSOPHISES. 

It was at the railway station that Mr. Stunts, looking ill 
and careworn, overtook the Monocle, having heard that the 
visitor was about to take an extended journey through the 
States. 

As the distinguished subject of His Most Gracious Maj- 
esty was in the act of entering a drawing-room car Mr. 
Stunts came along. 

"By the way, I would esteem it a favor if before seeing 
our vast continent you would kindly give me your impres- 
sions of these United States of America, their National and 
Municipal Governments and your emotions on beholding 
the Statue of Liberty." 

"I am awfully glad to see you, don't you know \" declared 
the Monocle cordially, at the same time looking at Mr. 
Stunts' card, "and wish I had the spare time to have a chat 
with you. I trust the various views I have given on a few 
matters of moment will satisfy your readers. And, by the 
way, kindly convey my cordial regards to your numerous 
interviewers; let me see, Mr. — er — Mr. — er — Mr. Smart, 
Mr. Bull — what is it ? Oh, yes, Mr. Bulldozer, Mr. — Mr. — 
let me think — Mr. Spikesomething — Spikem, yes, and my 
esteemed friend, your poet, Mr. Inkstand; no, no, I mean 
Inkey, Inkey. I am awful on remembering names as you 



REJECTED 55 

will have observed by my frequent reference to your card. 
I think I should have been secretary to the late Mr. Glad- 
stone, in his conservative days, had it not been for my for- 
getting his name for the moment and calling him Jones ! 
Think of it ! A most awful error, don^t you know ! And, 
I candidly confess, a most unpardonable one, for Jones and 
Gladstone are so unlike each other, aren't they ?'' 

At that moment the porter came up with the Monocle's 
rugs, hat boxes and sticks, riding whips and a portable 
bath-tub. Of course, everybody looked at the bath-tub, 
whereupon the huge, fat porter was heard to say "Kubber !" 
Whether he meant to imply the word in the classic sense in 
which it is used to-day, or whether he merely intended to 
inform the uninitiated that the bath was of rubber compo- 
sition, is still a question to be decided. 

"Before I start on my journey," said the Monocle, "I 
have to say how very charmed I am " 

"Yes!" interrupted the editor, anxiously and encourag- 
ingly. 

"I was about to say, how very charmed I am both with 
the untiring attention your paper has given me, Mr. Stunts, 
and the extreme cordiality shown me by your fellow editors 
and your reporters. I feel, sir, that if I have rendered you, 
them, every one of you, jointly and separately, any service, 
though small, it is a matter of significant pleasure to me." 

"You are in a position. Monocle, to add further to any 
service you may have done us, by just informing me of your 
impression of these United States of America, their Na- 
tional and " 

"My dear Mr. Stunts, it is with pride that I can boast a 
good quantity of the old school about me and I can, conse- 
quently, appreciate deeply, reverently and profoundly. In 
this fin-de-siecle period, life is a filigree, and an artificiality. 
Sincerity to-day is a weakling and lacking backbone. The 
spinal column of sound, healthy, robust friendship has been 



56 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

contused by the rapid strides, even into our homes, of the 
business element. The home is no longer a haven of rest 
and repose. It is now almost the continuation of the office, 
the shop, the store, the factory, the law courts and many 
more things equally unsatisfactory and foreign to the dear, 
old, hospitable hearth of by-gone days. There is, unfor- 
tunately, an unrest, sir, in the women as well as in men; 
in the new-born babe as much as in youth. Can it be 
remedied, sir? I say, deliberately, that it can. Why, I 
have watched gentlemen hurry over their meals in an 
alarming manner and then apologize for being unable, 
through nervousness, to sit for any length of time at the 
table, that I have felt like suggesting that their wives, in- 
stead of seating them at the table, might better erect a 
quick-lunch counter in the dining-room." 

Mr. Stunts was now growing anxious as he looked at his 
watch. 

"We have only five minutes," urged the editor, "before 
you start on your journey, therefore, if you will be good 
enough to favor me with some idea of your opinions formed 
of these United States of America, their National and 



"Continuing where I left off," proceeded the Monocle, 
with a brave determination to snow under Mr. Stunts and 
his questions, "I have concluded that the head of the house- 
hold is to blame. He introduces his confounded commer- 
cialism into his family circle, and I tell you, sir, it is a 
most uncomfortable guest at a table or before a great blaz- 
ing fire, around which once upon a time the rubber of whist 
and the game of cribbage were nightly played ; and stories 
of a pure and healthful bent were told and the children, 
there were children in those days, eat intent and delighted 
to hear the interesting reminiscences and chivalrous senti- 
ments of their elders. Have modern inventions and modern 
thoughts and usages brought in their wake a modern hap- 



REJECTED 57 

piness which can compare with the contentment of the long 
past? This is an age, my dear Mr. Stunts, of 'Go' and 
'Get there;' therefore, man, woman and child seem to 'go' 
as they please and 'get' what they please and few 'go' as 
others please. To me, sir, life is so dear, so beautiful, so 
generous, that I live to indulge the benefits, as far as I can, 
which it so bountifully offers, and while fully acknowledg- 
ing the wonders of the inventions of the day, and the un- 
doubted boon to society which modern inventions and appli- 
ances afford, I still, sometimes, nay, oftentimes, wish myself 
far from the turmoil, the shift, the whirr and buzz, the un- 
easy, restless, striving world and the goring savagery of the 
moment. I admire gentle man and noble womanhood so 
deeply that I would there were a sandpaper to burnish the 
portion of harsh, unsmoothed, rough-souled creatures and 
thereby add to modern humanity more of the brightness of 
life. Burnishing is what is required, sir, a polishing up, a 
tempering. Folks may prate of the wonderful age we 
live in. I, too, acknowledge it to be all remarkable and won- 
derful, but, while I do so, I contend, reluctantly, that there 
is not the contentment there should and, of course, could 
be. Take it from me, my dear Mr. Stunts, that the mo- 
ment is permeated with wild, reckless, grasping wealth- 
hungry characteristics that speak not too well for the 
boasted superfine quality of the age. I do not speak on the 
threshold of this movable palace with the idea that I, or 
you, can effect a change of existing conditions. Neither 
think me so bound up with idiocy as to imagine that the 
speeches, or writings, the importuning of one, or a hundred 
or a thousand can alter them. The mad rush will go on, 
the pace will increase, for the race has already started; 
but, mind you, the heavy weights the majority are carrying, 
the result of their own handicapping, must tell in the long 
run. The world will go on just the same, but man will be- 
come stale at a very early period in the race for wealth, and 



58 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

the break down will inevitably follow. Yes, yes, there are 
others, and there will be others, to take the place of the 
broken hacks who will strain every nerve to break the record 
of their predecessors, but with the same fatal results. And 
when all is said and done the whole resolves itself into the 
fattening of the one commanding and growing germ — 
artificiality, which is burrowing its way into the vitals of 
society. Artificiality is the word, my dear Stunts, that ac- 
counts for many unpleasantries in our daily life, — that is 
responsible for much of the unhappiness we read about, 
know about and fear about.'^ 

The heavy mustached, pudgy-nosed, balloon-paunched 
conductor gave the signal, the porter informed the Monocle 
that its boxes, rugs, sticks, riding whips and portable rub- 
ber bath-tub were all aboard, and the Monocle was soon 
whirling along in a luxurious car to see the United States 
of America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 

Mr. Stunts looked after the disappearing train, replaced 
his note book and pencil, which he had carried in his hand 
all the while, in the recess of his inner pocket, dried the 
steam off his spectacles, and ejaculating a husky "Hem !" 
betook himself to the office of The Daily Morning Inflated, 



EEJECTED INTERVIEW YllL— (Irrational) 

EDITOR STUNTS SAUNTERS TO THE OFFICE OF 
THE DAILY INFLATED— HIS RECEPTION 
NOT AT ALL CORDIAL— 'TWAS THE 
COLD, NOT THE WARM, HAND EX- 
TENDED—SAD CONCLUSIONS 
BY BROTHER EDITORS. 

Mr. Stunts was so thoroughly disheartened at his failure 
to obtain the Monocle's views on the United States of 
America, their National and Civic Governments and the 
Statue of Liberty that he even passed a half-dozen doors 
of The Daily Inflated, and instead of entering the office 
of the gatherers of news, he actually made the mistake of 
wanting straight into the establishment of the gatherers of 
the dead, — Messrs. Gone, Going & Co., undertakers. On 
perceiving his error he turned white and, stammering an 
apology, assured the meek-cheeked-white-tied representa- 
tive of Messrs. Gone, Going & Co., that he, for the present 
at any rate, found himself in the wrong place. Mr. Mumps, 
the clerk, by virtue of his surroundings, was alive to any 
emergency and surprise, but failed, in this instance, to ap- 
preciate Mr. Stunts' alarming mistake. As he received a 
small commission on every order taken during his em- 
ployers absence, and Mr. Mumps being in no wise too well 
remunerated for the grave nature of his position, he was 
sorely disappointed at heart when he discovered that Mr. 
Stunts had actually not come to leave an order. It dawned 
suddenly, however, on his fertile brain, that the editor prob- 
ably had had a sad order to give, but had, on the very 



60 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

threshold of the establishment, changed his mind and gone 
over to Mr. Tobia Shroud, the undertaker across the way. 
The probable loss of commission glaring Mumps in the eye, 
prompted him to sit down and pen the following : 

GONE, GOING & CO., Undertakers. 
Cemetery Street. 

February 18, 1901. 
Dear Sir — When you did us the honor to look in at our 
establishment a few moments ago, I regret, through your 
hurry to get out again, that I had not the pleasure of plac- 
ing you among our distinguished list of customers. I take 
it you changed your mind, though I would esteem it a favor 
before you give your order to any other firm to kindly glance 
down our revised list of charges. I also enclose our pam- 
phlet entitled, "How to Bury at Smallest Cost.'^ 

Awaiting the honor of your early order, I am, dear sir, 
Your obedient servant at all hours, 

PETER MUMPS. 

To U. C. Stunts, Esq., Night Editor, The Daily Inflated. 

Mr. Stunts at last returned safely to his office and both 
Mr. Spikem and Mr. Inkey sat complacently awaiting his 
arrival. 

The greeting was zeroatic, indeed. It could not have 
possibty been colder had the gentlemen met in an ice chest. 

"Good evening, sir,^' said Mr. Stunts. 

"It is morning yet,'^ said Mr. Inkey. 

"Yes, yes, to be sure,'' agreed Mr. Stunts, as he laid 
down his hat upon the table and commenced to take off his 
gloves, each finger at a time, and with a deliberation quite 
unlike him. 

"You have the interview, of course?" asked Mr. Inkey 
and Mr. Spikem in one breath, but with a cruel leer of 
triumph which showed they had been discussing the matter 



REJECTED 61 

pretty freely between themselves and had come to one con- 
clusion, cruel gentlemen ! They knew very well that Mr. 
Stunts would fail, as they had failed, to draw out the 
Monocle's opinion of these United States of America, their 
National and Civic Governments and the Statue of Lib- 
erty. 

There was a slight pause as Mr. Stunts pulled at the las't 
finger of his glove and drew a long, deep, sad breath. 

"iSToo," said Mr. Stunts, "Noo, I certainly did not suc- 
ceed in getting the interview.'^ 

"Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! ha V laughed Mr. Inkey. "Did I not 
tell you, Spikem, that he would not get it T' 

"Well, Mr. Stunts, we must have something about the 
Monocle in the morning. Surely the Monocle said some- 
thing of interest before departing ?'^ suggested Mr. Spikem, 
interrogatively. 

"The views of the Monocle are so extraordinary that I 
really forget half of what was said,^^ replied the good Mr. 
Stunts ; "but I do remember this much, that there was not 
one word that would be of interest to our readers." 

"Had you not better write up an interview of some 
kind?" asked Mr. Inkey. 

"Eeally, my dear Mr. Inl^ey, I cannot collect my 
thoughts," replied Mr. Stunts in a weird tone. 

"We do not need your thoughts," put in Mr. Spikem, 
rather tartly. "Let us have those of the Monocle.'^ 

At that moment a messenger handed to Mr. Stunts the 
note from Mr. Peter Mumps, the undertakers' assistant. 

"JSTow ! What have I done with my glasses ?" Mr. Stunts 
inquired as he searched every pocket in vain for his spec- 
tacles. "Dear me ! Where could I have left them ? Here, 
Inkey, kindly see what this is." 

Mr. Stunts passed the note to Mr. Inkey who opened the 
envelope and read the startling contents aloud. 

The editors looked at each other in dismay. 



62 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

"Why didn't you tell us, Stunts, that you had suffered a 
loss?" asked Mr. Spikem with profound emotion. 

^'I have suffered no loss, sir,'' responded Mr. Stunts. 

"Then for whom did you seek the services of the under- 
taker?" asked Mr. Spikem. 

"For no one that I know of, sir," replied Mr. Stunts. 

It was now the turn of both Spikem and Inlvey to look 
upon Mr. Stunts with suspicion and doubt as to the health- 
ful condition of his mind. His tart manner, his visit to 
Gone, Going & Go's establishment, that note from Mr. 
Peter Mumps — all seemed so exceedingly strange that the 
wise gentlemen could come but to one conclusion — Stunts 
needed rest — he was evidently suffering from hallucina- 
tions to the extent, even, of visiting an undertaker without 
reason; even going so far as to waver between the two 
firms — Gone, Going & Co. and Tobia Shroud. That note 
of Mr. Peter Mumps proved to them conclusively that there 
was something radically wrong with Mr. Stunts. His an- 
tics, too, in frightening, almost to death, Mr. Inkey's good 
lady, her maid servant and her cat, on the plea that he im- 
agined that Mr. Inkey was a maniac, only went to 
strengthen the opinion that he. Stunts, was sadly demented. 
It was now a question settled in the mind of Stunts whether 
Spikem should not be placed in an asylum for inebriates 
and Inkey in a sanitarium for weak-minded, while the two 
latter gentlemen turned over in their minds the advisability 
of having Stunts examined at once as to his sanity and, if 
necessary, placed in safe keeping until a time when his 
normal mental capacity could be guaranteed. Unhappy 
times had certainly come upon the staff. Through his dis- 
charge from The Daily Inflated, Mr. Smart, the reporter, 
had been denied other engagements, as it had got about in 
newspaper circles that he was absolutely unreliable; a 
stain which stuck so closely to him that he, in a weak mo- 
ment, assisted with all his might and pocket to enrich the 



REJECTED 63 

portly proprietor of a dazzlingly decorated bar room. And 
Bulldozer, poor Bulldozer, reduced to impecuniosity, one 
meal a day and an abnormally fitting suit of ready-made 
clothes (so unlike the spick and span Bulldozer) had to 
suffer the libel of being addicted to drugs which induce 
mental stupor. Unable to get even an assignment on any 
paper in the city he added to the undeserved reputation 
which was attached to him by taking a header from a high 
bridge into the deep, dark water below. But it is an ill 
jump that does nobody any good, as was proved after his 
miraculous rescue, when offers of engagements from pro- 
moters, boomers and purveyors of freaks flowed in upon 
him. Thus our Bulldozer was allotted a living among men. 
He chummed with the ^^Bearded Lady ;" he supped with the 
gentleman who voraciously ate of glass; he made a boon 
companion of the sinuous snake charmer, and besides suffer- 
ing exhibition as the ''^Greatest Living Bridge Jumper of 
the Twentieth Century,'^ acted as press agent for the "Dime 
Museum;'^ a position of much honor and standing in the 
community. So what with disruption in the editorial de- 
partment, mistrust of the reportorial corps and the parting 
with two of its most reliable reporters. The Daily Morning 
Inflated was reduced from the cream of journalistic pub- 
lications to a milk and water newspaper. The internal 
disruption was felt externally to so great an extent that 
full soon The Daily Inflated, with that struggle which is 
sadly watched in cases of impending dissolution, suffered a 
convulsion, accelerated by a puncture superinduced by the 
strike of the compositors, who, without extra remunera- 
tion, a shortcoming antagonistic to the Federal Typograph- 
ical Union^s rules, were kept overtime, day in and night 
out, to set up the interviews that never came. Thus is 
shown what disorder may arise in a newspaper office 
through the muley obstinacy persisted in and indulged by 



64 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

an iron-rimmed obstacle to all modern intelligence — a 
Monocle. 

However, the editors ultimately came together when ex- 
planations were exchanged sufficient to exonerate Mr. 
Spikem of insobriety and Messrs. Stunts and Inkey of in- 
cipient insanity, while Mr. Bulldozer was captured from 
the onerous duties of Press Agent of the Museum and, with 
young Mr. Smart, was reinstated to his proud and distin- 
guished position on The Inflated's reportorial staff with 
profuse and manly apologies as compensation for the harm 
and damage done him. 

END OF PART I. 
Note — See Part II for the Monocle's sober thoughts and 
rational opinions. 



PART II. 



THE IISTTERVIEWS AS THEY APPEARED IN" 
THE INFLATED, 



65-5 



The Popular Paper. 
Fearless and Honest! 



the Daify Inflated 



The People's Paper! 



Vol. XXIV 



New York, Monday, September 16th, 1901 Price 5 Cents 



BURNED AT THE STAKE. THE MONOCLE RETURNS 

TO NEW YORK AFTER 

A TOUR OF THE 

UNITED STATES. 

SPEAKS FREELY TO THE 

REPRESENTATIVE OF 

THE DAILY INFLATED ON 

THE ADVANTAGES 

OFFERED UNDER 

THE FOLDS OF 

THE STARS AND STRIPES. 



SHOCKING SCENES.— VIC- 
TIM IS DRAGGED TO 

HIS DEATH. 
(Special to The Inflated.) 

Lynch ville, Sept. 15. — Last 
night another lynching took 
place at Lynchville. The vie 
tim, Tom Pipp, colored, was 
identified as the perpetrator of 
an outrage and in the presence 
of five thousand citizens was 
bound and dragged to the kero- 
sene-soaked pyre, upon which 
he was tied with ropes and set 
afire. His writhings were 
awful to behold. Citizens came 
from miles around, many with 
picnic baskets. It only needed 
the presence of Nero to make 
the scene completely pictures- 
que. 

{Special to The Inflated.) 

Pyretown, Sept. 15. — A bar- 
barous act was performed near 
this town this morning. John 
Christopher Black, who was 
suspected of having: committed 
a robbery, was taken out in the 
fields and strapped to a pole. 
A heap of wood, well moistened 
with oil, was spread under and 
around him and soon the man 
was ablaze. The scene almost 
b«(ggars description. Before the 
lagots were set afire the vic- 
tim's cries and protests of his 
innocence resounded far in the 
woods. The mob greeted his 
appeals with jeers and profane 
and blasphemous oaths and de- 
moniacal 3'ells and screeches. 



"Yes, my experiences have 
undergone many phases — some 
delightful, others extraordi- 
nary, often appalling, at times 
disappointing, now and again 
humorous, more often sad, oc- 
casionally tragic and all the 
while political." 

"Then you have mastered the 
intricacies of our politics since 
our last meeting?" inquired the 
representative of The Inflated, 
who had welcomed the Monocle 
with effusive greeting. 

"Mastered your politics!" 
repeated the Monocle; "Egad, 
it is such a giant that I would 
hardly set myself the task of 
even attempting to get the 
mastery. As I see it, your 
politics masters you, and is, in 
truth a veritable and uncom- 
promising, harsh, and frequent- 
ly a too cruel and iron-handed 
master. Your people, Heaven 
bless and preserve them in their 
prosperity, seem to me to live 
on politics from the cradle to 
the grave. You are in many 
instances peculiar in that you 



67 



68 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

return men to office, your Senate and your Congress, to Qli 
honorable positions, but you instantly accuse them of 
accepting bribes, or bribing, or accumulating vast wealth 
in ways not strictly straight, and, indeed, devilishly 
crooked. In short, one would think, judging from the ex- 
traordinary charges so often laid at the door of your public 
men, that there are few fit to enjoy the confidence of a free- 
voting people/^ 

"There is more truth than poetry in what you say, but 
we are a young people, — we are in our swaddling clothes,'^ 
suggested the newspaperman. 

"Stuff and nonsense,^^ said the Monocle. "I repeat a 
thousand times with a vehemence strong enough to be heard 
from the coast of Maine to the sun-glinted gates of the Pa- 
cific, — stuff and nonsense ! Are not your lawmakers men 
of mature years ? Are they not equal in intelligence with 
the framers of the laws of other great nations ? Are they 
not working contemporaneously with men who, the world 
over, are doing exactly what they are doing, — advancing the 
condition;; of their fellows? Your country has grown up 
by thrift, indomitable pluck and noble determination, but 
do not forget, nor should any one of you forget, that to 
your very wise and scholarly forbears, gentlemen who had 
a generous schooling in the ambitious and ideal and sedate 
prlitics of their day, is due the building up of this glorious 
and ever-growing nation. They built upon foundations of 
strength, upon mental pillars of strength, upon ripe and 
wliolft-ome knowledge, bom of a combination of education 
and worldly experience and healthful social and political 
surroundings. But granted that you are young, in that 
caK< you are an exceedingly precocious infant." 

"A precocity conceived by the Motherland which bore 
our sires,^' said the newspaperman, proudly. 

"Your words," said the Monocle, ''are evidence of the 
power and the glory and the unbreakable unity of the Eng- 



ACCEPTED 69 

lish-speaking race. We, no matter the difference of political 
and social forms, or the wide expanse of sea dividing us, 
are proud of the Motherland that gave ns the sinew, the 
brawn, the muscle, the brain, the ingenuity, the high, un- 
conquerable spirit, the stubborn, plodding thrift and un- 
daunted courage. To that Motherland we turn as one with 
filial pride. Her offspring, the world over, will ever re- 
main as one family dispensing liberty, education and 
charity, whither they may go." 



THE MONOCLE SPEAKS INTERESTINGLY OF 
THE COUNTRY. 

"Your journey to the Coast naturally brought you a new 
experience of manners and mode of living as compared with 
the old world ?" suggested the newspaperman. 

"It is not my intention to draw comparisons," insisted 
the Monocle. 

"At any rate, may not the opinions you have formed be 
available?". 

"The opinions I have formed are decided, and in giving 
them I wish to disown any prejudices whatsoever. I am 
enchanted with your country, — beautiful and noble as it is 
vast, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Grand, sir, mar- 
velous to behold, varied in its scenery as it is in its climate. 
On my travels it seemed to me that some kind fairy had 
taken and promised me many wonderful changes of scenery 
and as each morning came revealed to my view a new pan- 
orama of mountain and valley, hill and dale, wide river 
and circling lake; changing to such sylvan retreats as are 
untouched by man and enriched and cared for alone by 
generous and prolific nature. I found enchantment in the 
miles of desert lands; I became enthusiastic over the ap- 
parently unlimited cities and towns and hamlets, and I 



70 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

marvelled and I pondered, and said I to myself : 'Are the 
legislators of this vast continent as corrupt as is alleged ?' '* 

"And you concluded ?" 

"I came to the conclusion that your fair country must be 
crammed full of the liveliest libelers to be found between 
heaven and earth." 

"My dear Monocle, you are deserving a seat in Congress 
or the Senate/' 

"And if so honored, an unworthiness would be quickly 
manufactured for me and advertised ; yes, even by you who 
now compliment me. If a man among you would retain 
his good character let him keep out of your politics." 

"When a man becomes public property have we not the 
right to speak of him as we think ?" asked the newspaper- 
man. 

"Not as you think, but as you know," demanded the 
Monocle. "It is the thinking that is responsible for your 
error, your unblushing cruelty. You take for granted, be- 
cause a man represents you in your National or State As- 
sembly, that you are at liberty to brand him a knave for no 
other reason than that you think he is one. I have heard, 
to my astonishment, of so much corruption that were it 
true, your jails would be overflowing with Congressmen, 
Senators and others who have held, and are holding, the 
highest positions in your land. If a public man has the 
misfortune to grow rich you at once doubt the source of his 
income. You make charges which are amazing and serious, 
but, with it all, never is there one to impeach the gentleman. 
Why ? For the simple reason that it is all suspicion ; it is 
thought to be so and so, but, in fact, is never positively 
known to be the so and so alleged." 

"This is a free country." 

"Yes, and your freedom is too often misused. It is 
criminal insolence to charge men of your Parliament with 
base designs and shady dealings. If your cities are bur- 



ACCEPTED 71 

dened with a class inelegantly called by you *Boodlers/ is 
there any reason in the world why you, a free and independ- 
ent people, should tolerate a state of affairs so deplorable ?" 

"It exists V' 

"I bluntly tell you I do not believe it !" retorted the Mon- 
ocle; "you cast slurs upon your wealthy lawmaker by ask- 
ing, 'How did he get it?^ If he has robbed the public 
coffers you need never ask those questions. You would 
know how and where he got it ; and, further, if it were so 
that he misused the public funds, or corrupted or bribed, 
or received bribes, you know as well as I that he would be 
compensated with a term of imprisonment and the brand 
of everlasting disgrace. The fact is you set up your po- 
litical opponent as an enemy ; without fear of a consequence 
you besmirch his good name and you make charges which 
you cannot, nor do you even attempt to substantiate.^' 

"We have as much respect for our public men, if deserv- 
ing our confidence, as any other people in the world." 

"Tush \" the Monocle exclaimed. "It is your want of 
respect that keeps from your National and Civic Assemblieb 
many able, representative, scholarly citizens, gentlemen 
whom any country would be proud to honor with its regard. 
To my pain and surprise I have encountered men, supposed 
to be gifted with intelligence, who have not faltered in 
pouring forth and bragging contempt for upright and hon- 
orable gentlemen to whom they are opposed only politi- 
cally.'' 

"Every man here is free-born and his opinion is unfet- 
tered," said the newspaperman. 

"There is scarcely a country to-day, sir, but what gives 
liberty of speech and action to its people, but the liberty 
of maliciously and falsely and wilfully scandalizing a man 
just because he is a public man differing in opinion with 
others,is not allowed by the law of any other civilized nation, 
nor would it be tolerated by the masses. Few among your 



72 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

public-spirited men are willing to become targets for the 
offalized outpourings of the army of irresponsibles and 
venomous libelers in your community. Your disappointed 
politicians, or many among them, are a class I have met and 
learned to deplore, for to them may be attributed much of 
the brutal libel on those who have been more fortunate in 
the political arena/' 

"You do not know our politicians." 

"Do your 

"As a free-born American I know of our politicians and 
have a right to say what I feel of them ; and, further, as a 
free-bom American I care not the snap of the finger for 
any man." 

"I pray you remember, henceforth, that it is quite un- 
necessary to gorge down my throat the happy fact that you 
are free-born. The world, for a century or so, has been 
pretty well assured that you enjoy the inestimable freedom 
vouchsafed you by the wise Anglo-Saxon framers of yoar 
lucid and generous Constitution. I know well that you are 
free-born. The policeman, who audaciously and murder- 
ously clubs his prisoner on the streets of New York until, 
as is often the case, he inflicts a fracture of the skull, or a 
few ugly scalp wounds, is also free-born, and, for thj mat- 
ter of that, so is the poor wretch who falls a victim to the 
freo-born easy way of proving and exercising authority." 

"You are indeed observant." 

^'One does not need to be clubbed by an officer of the law 
to appreciate the brutality. It is an every-day occurrence 
among you ; but since you are free-born I suppose such acts 
of barbaric violence must be tolerated. However, you must 
admit the disadvantages suffered even by you who can boast 
of absolute freedom for all. When the poor fruit vendor on 
your Metropolitan streets must suffer the heartless tossing 
into the gutter of his little cart, together with all his fruit, 
because he does not ^move on' quickly enough for an iron- 



ACCEPTED 73 

muscled, soulless policeman, I rise in indignation and wish 
I dared, with safety, address a few words of human feeling 
to the stalwart, fat-fed officer and teach him that by his 
brutal act he antagonizes those who would be his sup- 
porters, and, further, that he, himself, places his important 
position and authority and the law of peace and order 
in jeopardy of contempt. You will now have to excuse me. 
On some other occasion I shall certainly enjoy another 
visit from you. Good night.*' 



Sensations 
Respectably Reported. 



Cbe Daily Tnflated 



A Paper for the 
People. 



Vol. XXIV 



New York, Tuesday, September 17th, 1901 



Price 6 Cents 



FEARFUL HEAT IN THE 
CITY.— MANY PROS- 
TRATIONS AND DEATHS 
FROM THE HEAT AND 
SUNSTROKE. 

For the last twenty-four 
hours the heat has been ter- 
rific. The poor have suffered 
beyond description, sleeping on 
roofs, fire-escapes and side 
walks. Thousands of unfor 
tunate creatures, denied the 
right to close their eyes in the 
Public Parks of New York, 
found some consolation in be- 
ing able to sleep on the docks. 

There is hope that the new 
libraries, philanthrop i c a 1 1 y 
given the city, will be com 
pleted by next summer that the 
advantages of the cool marble 
steps may be enjoyed by those 
who cannot find sleep in the 
sweltering, ill-ventilated tene- 
ments. Poor children have suf- 
fered this summer as in other 
summers. Their condition is 
pitiable to behold. Here, in- 
deed, is work for those who find 
that wealth is so irksome as to 
cause its owners sleepless hours 
in thinking how best it 
can serve humanity. 

We have opened a subscrip- 
tion, heading the list with of- 
fers of a complimentary copy 
of The Inflated for every sub- 
scriber for a Free Open Air 
Park, where the poor may find 
repose without molestation. 

Free Ice and Free Fresh Air 
are excellent adjuncts to com- 
fort, but Free Sleep in a Free 
Park and a Free copy of our 
journal would be a blessing and 
a boon to mankind. 



THE MONOCLE ADVISES 

THOSE WHO COME TO 

THE UNITED STATES 

FOR A LIVING. 
ADVANTAGES OF SET- 
TLING IN THE SALUBRI- 
OUS ATMOSPHERE OF 
THE GOLDEN WEST. 
VARIED OPINIONS THAT 
MAY BE READ WITH 
INTEREST. 
A representative of The In- 
flated met the Monocle while in 
a most communicative mooa. 

"Oh, yes, I am willing to 
give you something of my ob- 
servations while traveling 
through the luxurious State of 
California," said the Monocle. 

"You were evidently impress- 
ed with the country?" asked 
the newspaperman. 

"Unquestionably. It is a re- 
markable State and the only 
wonder to me is, that it is not 
far more thickly populated." 

"What are the advantages as 
you see them?" 

"Climate, soil, indeed, out 
there can be found every con- 
ceivable commercial and social 
opportunity for the industri- 
ous; every possible happiness 
for every class." 

"What disadvantages did you 
note?" 

"There are no disadvantages 
out there other than those 
placed upon the agriculturalists 
by, so far as I could gather, inor- 
dinately heavy railway freight 
charges, which militate 



ACCEPTED 75 

against the output of the enormous yield of the agricultural 
districts. Those freight charges are a crippler. California 
is so blessed that were the opportunity to supply the mar- 
kets of the world allowed by the reasonable adjustment of 
carrying charges, the farmer and fruit grower would thrive 
as in no other land. The railway instead of being a boon, 
actually cramps and holds back and ties the hands of the 
tillers of the soil. 

CALIFOENIA A MARVELOUS COUNTRY. 

"California," continued the Monocle "is rich, develop- 
ing, wondrous and hospitable. Its vast and fruitful land 
waits to welcome the sturdy yeoman; it invites the indus- 
trious to develop it, and, by the way, its natural oppor- 
tunities for manufacturing, while unlimited, are almost 
neglected and overlooked. A laborer may work the three 
hundred and sixty-five days of the year without climatic 
hindrance. He can feed well ; indeed, for small cost is en- 
abled to live as comfortably as the merchant in your East. 
He can indulge his appetite, and far better than most busi- 
ness men in other parts of your continent. There are no 
cruel blizzards to interrupt his day's labor, nor sweltering- 
summers to threaten him with collapse and prostration. 
To those industrious persons who wish a pacific livelihood, 
to those who come to the United States in the hope of ac- 
quiring a competency, to the young man of the East who 
is willing to tear himself from the false and alluring glam- 
our of the much crowded cities, I commend heaven-blessed 
California. The future of the sun-warmed State cannot 
be estimated. Its wealth, mineral, agricultural and flori- 
cultural, is so vast, and its advantages so great, that it is a 
surprise to me that more thousands, especially those with 
small means, do not flock to take the benefit of it all." 



76 INTERVIEW 8 WITH A MONOCLE 

"And as a place of residence for the wealthy ?" asked the 
newspaperman. 

"In that important respect, too, California cannot be ex- 
celled. The Metropolis of the Pacific Coast offers extra- 
ordinary social inducements to the visitor, the settler and 
the natives of the soil. The educational institutions are of 
the very highest degree of excellence. Society, notwith- 
standing the cosmopolitan character of the population, is 
absolutely conservative. The Municipal government quite 
equals any similar government of the older cities of the 
world, as far as I could see, and I noted that one particular 
essential to comfort especially. The residences are ad- 
mirably equipped, architecturally fascinating, and, in nu- 
merous instances, actually palatial. There are handsome 
theaters, not alone in San Francisco, but in every city and 
in almost every town in the State of California ; all being 
conducted and played in a faultless manner and under 
first rate direction. As a matter of fact several of the 
shrewdest and most capable managers, authors, actors and 
opera singers in the United States, in the past and to-day, 
graduated from sunny, amusement-loving San Francisco. 
The membership of the clubs is of the exclusive and can 
number writers, painters, musicians, raconteurs, wits, 
statesmen, princely merchants and the best that modern 
clubdom can boast. The people live with a profusion of 
perfume-spreading flowers for companions, and graceful 
tall palms and richly foliaged trees and the greenest of 
green lawns, no matter v/hich way you turn, to enchant the 
eye as if to remind one of the inestimable pleasure and de- 
light and calm and repose to be found in sublime nature. 
My dear sir, the world has hardly awakened to the ines- 
timable advantages offered by the God-favored lands of 
California. It is there that nature smiles its happiest, 
whether on the virgin sand-shores of the Pacific, or be- 



ACCEPTED 77 

yorid the emerald-capped mountains, or through the sweet 
scented orange groves and luscious-fruited orchards. It 
seems to me to be an ever-smiling land, awaiting to satisfy 
v/ith prodigal hospitality the needs of all mankind." 



THE MONOCLE VENTS ITS OPINION ABOUT 
CHICAGO AND BOSTON AND OTHEE CITIES 
AND SPEAKS OF DEPRAVED POLITICAL 
VERSUS CLEAN MUNICIPAL. POWER 
—NEW YORK CITY A MAGNIFI- 
CENT GIANT. 

"You, of course, had a view of Windy City ?" asked the 
newspaperman. 

"Windy City V^ exclaimed the Monocle with an effort to 
recollect. "No; I do not remember having stopped over at 
any city of that name, indeed, I am positive ^^ 

"By Windy City I mean Chicago,'^ explained the news- 
paperman. 

"I thank you for your lucid explanation. Windy City ! 
Dear me, I suppose Chicago is so called by reason of the 
winds from Lake Michigan?'' 

"Possibly that," said the newspaperman. 

"I met them face to face, yet I didn't recognize anything 
about them at all exceptional from other winds. But your 
question was, I believe, as to my view of that city. Yes, 
I dropped in and walked between the lofty cloud-reached 
buildings which, with their countless commercial offices, 
are monumental proof of the enterprise of that very ex- 
traordinary and quick-grown center of industry and thrift." 

"Naturally, you paid a visit to Chicago's great slaughter 
yard ?" inquired the newspaperman. 



78 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

"Naturally, I paid visits to Chicago's great University 
as well as to many of her admirably organized public in- 
stitutions and localities of princely residences," retorted the 
Monocle. 

"You evidently think well of Porkopolis ?" 

"I think well, indeed, highly, of Chicago," replied the 
Monocle. 

"I note in you a deep strain of reverence," declared the 
newspaperman. 

"Say as well that you note in me a keen sense of justice 
and a ready recognition and appreciation of that which is 
deserving of respect." 

"Don't you think that many years must elapse before 
Chicago can hope to come any way near New York from 
an educational, social, artistic and commercial standpoint ?" 
asked the newspaperman. 

"If you are very anxious to have my candid opinion, then 
here it is: From the points you advance for comparison, 
Chicago suffers not one whit, since she has taken hold of 
and enjoys every advantage that modern invention and cul- 
ture are able and ready to bestow. She can boast a clean 
cut social set. I like her social set. It isn't clothed in 
tinsel and it is thoroughly healthy and robust." 

"Then black-soot-smearing smoke must be of some ad- 
vantage after all," said the newspaperman. 

"I should say of decided advantage," returned the Mon- 
ocle. 

"But a devilish nuisance you'll admit?" inquired the 
newspaperman. 

"When those chimney stacks by the hundreds emit 
columns of curling, writhing smoke and showers of soot, 
remember that they represent the working of thousands of 
toiling men; they tell of the feeding and the clothing of 
families; they are the signs which remind the visitor that 
he has come to a home of industry where the live man may 



ACCEPTED 79 

find labor. That smoke of which you complain, is to the 
laborer what the beacon light is to the mariner. That curl- 
ing smoke beckons the artisan to the furnace doors, while 
in the buzz of the monster machinery can be heard the song 
of welcome — the paean telling of prosperity." 



THE MONOCLE DECLAKES CHICAGO A WONDER- 
FUL CITY. 

"When one is reminded that once upon a time, and not 
so long ago, that smoky, busy, thriving, massive Chicago, 
like Troy, arose from the ashes, one can the better appre- 
ciate the push and quick thinking precocity of its founders, 
a go-aheadedness that obtains to this very day, a character- 
istic which will surely raise, not before long, either, the 
Western Metropolis to the proud position of being the 
largest populated city of the United States. Now, replying 
to your other questions as to its social and artistic stand- 
ing as compared to the Atlantic-gate city of the States, I 
have but to refer you to a view of the superior homes, the 
quite admirable conduct of the public institutions, the 
luxurious club advantages, the temples of amusement, the 
spacious parks and, what I choose to call, the astonishing 
mercantile arenas and the bountiful and unstinted hos- 
pitality, together with the hearty manner with which it is 
bestowed and lavished. I take it that Chicago, and the 
cities west of the Mississippi, are typically United States 
American, as are also the restful, reposeful cities of the 
kindly, genial South." 



80 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

THE MONOCLE SPEAKS OF BOSTON AND FAIR- 
LY ENTHUSES OVER THE HUB. 

"And what about the Hub? Our School-ma'am? Our 
monitor ? Our Preceptor ?" asked the newspaperman. 

"Boston V exclaimed the Monocle; "how could I bestow 
other than heartfelt appreciation of that acknowledged 
seat of conservative commercialism and lofty learning?" 

"Ah, I see, you have tasted of its intellectual beans !'^ 
gasped the newspaperman. 

"Beans are much more wholesome," returned the 
Monocle, "than a bill of fare, ill-smelling of garlic and col- 
ored with the drippings of a cheap, bad claret — the very 
objectionable and grossly uninviting characteristics of a 
Fifty Cent Alien Table D'Hote." 

"Naturally, you will show a preference for a city so very 
English, you know !" 

"Indeed, I found the Bostonians no different from the 
rest of the great, good-blooded descendants of the Anglo- 
Saxon race; and, coming down to that very extraordinary 
attempt at satire, I have often met here, about being 'So 
very English, you know,' I would ask whether in your heart 
you truthfully think it a crime or ridiculous or tomfoolery 
or grotesque to retain and maintain the gallant customs, 
habits, characteristics, valor, courage and innate honor of 
your noble sires and the purity and chastity of your sweet 
mothers, who were the very sons and daughters of English 
men and English women? Do you hear your German- 
American citizen scoff his fellow countryman, or the de- 
cendants of Germans, with, 'So very German, you know!* 
or the French- American twit his blood relation with, 'So 
very French, you know !' or the Italian- American snarl at 
his compatriot, 'So very Italian, you know !' ? No, sir, you 
do not ! They do not make believe that their blood is di- 



ACCEPTED 81 

luted, but pride themselves on their constant endeavor to 
maintain it in all its native glow. While they do honor 
and give allegiance to the country of their adoption, they 
still proudly think of the land which gave them birth and 
continue to regard with respect and love the companions 
of their childhood." 

"You will agree that we need not make ourselves servile 
imitators?'^ urged the newspaperman. 

"Which of you that has done so ?'^ questioned the Mon- 
ocle. "Let me draw a parallel: The highly bred horses 
that are transported to these shores from across the seas 
for the purpose of assuring a certain stable the best class 
of animals, what of them ? An enormous price is unstint- 
ingly given for them for the reason that their brood, it is 
hoped and expected, will turn out to be of equal value. 
The strain in the descendants is boasted by the stud-owner ; 
he is proud of the blood of the sire and the dam, which he 
sees in every step, in every vein and every characteristic of 
the youngsters. He tells his guest that the pride of his eye 
in that stall is by imported Sir Modred out of imported 
Fairy Queen. That owner and breeder never forgets the 
blue-blooded progenitors. He refers to them with pro- 
found respect, and his one desire is always that the equine 
progeny shall inherit every trait of their ancestors. When 
he sees his colts, those from the imported stock, step up to 
the chin and with rounded neck and flowing mane prance 
and caper, and move with noble stride, he does not say de- 
risively, ^so English, you know !' If he were to say it at all 
it would be with exultant pride. Now as for the Bostonian, 
I grant you that he carries the mark of his good ancestry, 
and, forgive me for saying it, but, so do you." 

"I am an American, sir!" declared the newspaperman. 

"In the name of heaven I never said you were a Hotten- 
tot !" cried the Monocle. "Of course you are an American, 
and, faith ! your proud progenitors came here from across 

81-6 



82 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

those seas and they increased and multiplied and Uncle 
Sam, looking down upon his frisky, high-stepping colts, ad- 
miringly soliloquizes thus: 'Is't any wonder my high 
steppers and pacers can win any race hands down, and in a 
canter? Their sire was Old England, dam Brittanrda! 
What better pedigree, I trow?' Blood, my boy, will tell 
in man as well as in beast. Those who affect to pooh-pooh 
that human fact are trying in vain to deceive themselves." 

"Well, let us go back to Boston,'' suggested the news- 
paper man. 

"Willingly," agreed the Monocle, "for I love the dear, 
historical place. Boston, like delightful and sedate Phila- 
delphia and aristocratic Baltimore and semi-tropical New 
Ch leans, and many other of your distinguished sea-girt and 
inland cities, is a truly Imperial representative of your 
country. Its women, as well as its men, carry in the van 
the banner of learning; they lead the march from that dig- 
nified University Campus whence much of the wisdom is 
disseminated over your land." 

THE MONOCLE CASTS ITS REFLECTION ON NEW 
YORK CITY. 

"And our Metropolis, what opinion may you have formed 
of that greatest city on all earth; that monument of all 
that's wonderful ; that gigantic abode of between two mill- 
ion and three million souls ; that political haven whence no 
politician cares to go beyond Albany? Speak, Monocle, oh 
speak," entreated the newspaperman. 

"A handsome city, indeed," commenced the Monocle. 
"A fine, prosperous looking city, but how very strange it is 
that so few Americans are to be found there. But that, 
I think, can be readily understood, for no one would expect 
to find a representative American in an eight-room-flat- 
apartment, or hemmed in by two portions of what you call 



ACCEPTED 83 

'The Tenderloin;' nor would one expect to discover him 
seated at tlie blindless, exposed windows of restaurants, giv- 
ing the passing public the privilege of beholding him gour- 
mandizing. New York City has so many charming advan- 
tages that I really feel sorry to see that it has been evac- 
uated by Uncle Sam's children who have gone to the de- 
lightful suburbs to escape the ragged army of politicians 
and others. The Borough of Manhattan is, in parts, 
remarkably handsome and attractive, but, unfortunately, it 
is congested. It is narrow chested, towering sky-high, al- 
lowing little breathing space, no room for expansion ; every- 
body lives either on the top or below everybody else. The 
majority being compelled to live in boarding houses and 
lodging houses and sandwiched between loosely-built, thin- 
lathed, plastered walls, there is only a pretension to abso- 
lute privacy. Still, you are a magnificent giant among 
the cities of the world.'' 



THE ALIEN ELEMENT STRONG IN NEW YOEK. 

"Yes, the alien element predominates, arrogates and for- 
mulates until one is inclined to wonder why your House 
of Eepresentatives should not, for the sake of truth, be 
called The House of Cosmospolitans.' You have 
those among you who excel in bribery, according 
to every one of your newspapers, and I presume, 
therefore, the charge cannot be questioned; also in cor- 
ruption, shameless police scandals, defiance of law and a 
total ignoring of order. Accepting every one of your papers 
to be correct, and your Good Government committees a 
genuine need, your city is a Bedlam, a Babylon and a hot- 
bed for the worst and most contaminating political huck- 
sters that could be collected in any part of the civilized 
world. Your police are charged openly with being consort 
with crime, and with warning those against whom war- 



84 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

rants are issued, so tliey may escape ; and, actually, to poli- 
ticians is attributed the dangerous and pitiable and rot- 
ting condition of the most wonderfully constructed of all 
wonderful bridges. The churches have sought protection 
for the citizens against infamy, and the pulpits have echoed 
and re-echoed condemnation, have appealed and suppli- 
cated, and joined hands with laymen in the hope of remedy- 
ing the degradation and wrongs at their doors; Grand 
Juries have been impaneled to investigate hideous and 
dark official deeds. Committees of Investigation, besides, 
have been appointed and have sat for months probing, or 
trying to probe, into the depths of alleged crime; author- 
ity has been defied even by officials under direct examina- 
tion; impudence and audacity have been rampant; bom- 
bastic refusals to reply to legitimate questions put by the 
chairman appointed to sit in judgment by the Governor of 
the State have been common ; a magistrate flushed mth his 
sense of duty, and determined, so far as was in his power, 
that the ends of justice should not be defeated, has even 
himself headed a party of arresting officers, and so many 
things have happened, are happening and will continue to 
happen, not consonant with the dignity of so fine a Metro- 
polis of so great a country, that one staggers in dismay and 
wonders and ponders for a reasonable answer to it all. 
What is the matter with the people to allow it ? That ques- 
tion I have heard time and time again." 

"Have you fathomed the secret?'^ the newspaperman 
asked. 

"The cause is in the political-alien element which rules 
and fools and defies the people of the soil. I speak, re- 
member, from what 1 read, not in a politically biased or 
prejudiced press, but in the columns of reputable news- 
papers of all shades of politics; newspapers unanimously 
calling for better, cleaner, purer and truly representative 
Municipal Government. Please do not allow my remarks 



ACCEPTED 85 

to read as referring in any way to your National or Fed- 
eral Institutions or Statesmen, for such is not intended. 
I allude solely to your Municipal authorities and the cal- 
lous controllers of Municipal representatives. I am doing a 
bit of pig-sticking or tilting at the hogs that are scrambling 
and fattening at your Municipal trough. 

"There will, I know, be those who will splutter con- 
demnation over me, for it is only human nature after all 
to rebel against a criticism which is not laudatory. But let 
me say here, that in replying to your anxious and urgent 
questions I truthfully, and without fear or favor. Join the 
ranks of your clergyman, your priest, your judge, your 
most representative heads of the body commercial ; in short, 
I but echo the condemnations trum^peted by your press and 
the whole of your self-respecting citizens. In a previous in- 
terview I gave you, which in one or two respects I would 
certainly now modify, I might have dealt with this vital 
question but for the fact that I had not read of, or studied 
the Municipal problem which is so agitating you. Of 
course, a change for the better will come. It may take 
years. However, if you are ready and willing to wait, you 
know all things will come to you. What bothers my compre- 
hension is the fact that, though your highly esteemed citi- 
zens are perpetually in arms against the existing state of 
affairs, still the wrong men are permitted to boldly con- 
trol matters just the same. Therefore, I take it that your 
good intentioned reformer is much in the minority, since 
the majority of the voters seat in the cozy-padded official 
chairs the very men who are objectionable, and against 
whom the severest condemnation is hurled.^' 



Read of the Rookeries 
in Sunday's Issue. 



the Daily Inflatea 



Homes of the Poor 
in Sunday's Issue. 



Vol. XXIV 



New York, Wednesday, September 18, 1901 



Price 5 Cents 



FOUND DEAD FROM STAR 
VATION AMID HOR- 
RIBLE SURROUND- 
INGS IN A 

TENEMENT UNFIT FOR 
CATTLE TO SHEL- 
TER IN. 

The body of an unknown wo 
man, almost naked, showing 
signs of terrible poverty, was 
found at 100 Rookery Flats 
last night. The unfortunate 
creature, judging from her 
emaciated condition, had evi- 
dently died from starvation. 
It was learned later that the 
deceased may be Mrs. Milton 
Maple, who, through losses, 
was reduced to beggary some 
year or so ago. She was known 
about the neighborhood as "The 
Lonely Lady." At her feet was 
found an essay on "Philan- 
thropy and Advice to Philan- 
thropists — How best to dis- 
tribute their wealth since it 
has become to some of them a 
very trying question." 

The body was taken to the 
Morgue, where an inquest will 
be held. 

In an upper room in the 
same building was found the 
body of an old man. He was 
recognized as John Thrift. In 
a letter he left he admitted hav- 
ing received aid from several 
charitable people, but ill-luck 
followed him and preyed upon 
his mind. At the foot of the 
note he wrote: "I am now old, 
and in these days an old man, 
or woman, seems as much out 
of place as an old horse. Yes, 
it would seem that our useful- 
ness has passed, or, we are made 
to believe so." 



THE MONOCLE VIEWS THE 

HOMES OF THE POOR 
OF THE METROPOLIS OF 

THE UNITED STATES. 
STUNNED BY THE SHAME- 
FUL CONDITION OF THE 

DWELLINGS, 
RECOMMENDS IMPROVE- 
MENTS. 

"So you have made a study 
of the housing of our poor?" 
the newspaperman asked. 

"Most certainly," the Mon- 
ocle replied, with much em- 
phasis. "I heard so many com- 
pare the poor of the old coun- 
try with the poor of the United 
States that I made it my busi- 
ness to study the condition of 
the unfortunate of your great- 
est city. I conclude that the 
majority of those who make 
the comparison know either 
nothing at all of the subject or 
are incapable of appreciating 
the suffering at their doors." 

"Then the results of your ex- 
periences are?" 

"That for a modern city, 
your New York presents a de- 
plorable spectacle so far as the 
poor are concerned. I am not 
in the least surprised to find 
that, with warmth, your very 
able and watchful press has 
often bemoaned the very shock- 
ing condition that exists." 

"Yet our charitable institu- 
tions are many and the money 
contributed by the charitably 
disposed, to say nothing of tha 



£6 



ACCEPTED 87 

sums paid out by the City and State Governments, is sim- 
ply enormous. You will, at least, admit as much?" de- 
manded the newspaperman. 

"I do not refer to that class which is cared for by public 
funds. I allude to the industrious population that is desir- 
ous of being, and is able to be, self-sustaining. I affirm, sir^ 
that in no other city in the world could the housing of the 
industrious poor be more inhumane, more shameful or more 
at variance with the superfine ethics and elevating sestheti- 
cism laid down by civilization. 

THE NEW YOEK TENEMENTS. 

^Trom the lower East side of New York City to well up- 
town, much, too, on the West side, can be seen any summer 
day or night a condition of bodily and mental suffering that 
rivals description." 

"You will admit it would be a hard matter to care for 
so many unhappy thousands?" asked the newspaperman. 

"I admit nothing of the sort. Those of the class for 
whom I speak are, generally, industrious and ask no care, 
no charity, only decent habitation in return for the ex*» 
tortionately high rent demanded. As things are they must 
exist in quarters unfit even for animals." 

'^To whom do you attribute such a state of affairs ?" 

"To your Public Health Department for one," replied 
the Monocle, with much warmth. 

"The Health Department of the City of New York is 
efficient and is always on the alert; it performs its duty," 
said the newspaperman in a tone indicating that he knew 
what he was talking about. 

"Were the Health Department of this highly populated 
city doing its duty, were it on the alert, as you say, it would 
bring to the Courts of Justice those persons who own the 
hovels, and grow fat on the rents therefrom. If after proper 
and decisively swift notice such owners neglected to re- 
build their ramshackle dens, or improve and make them 



88 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

habitable and fit for human occupancy, they should be 
charged with maintaining a nuisance, in as much as they 
suffered fellow Christians to pay for rent and live in dwell- 
ings unfit for human habitation. Get at the landlord ! He 
is the person to bring to account ; he is the one to see to it 
that there are no leaks and apertures to let in the rains 
and the cold blasts of the terrible, pitiless winters en- 
countered here. I wonder if such a person ever stops to 
think of the comfortless hearths of his tenants and of the 
inability of many of them to provide themselves with even 
coal to ward off the biting frost and penetrating winds that 
coine in at the creaking doors and dilapidated, foul-smell- 
ing passages and ill-fitting windows ?" 

"But, my dear Monocle, in a week after repairs had been 
completed wouldn't the class whose comfort you champion 
have their rooms and halls and stairs and passages in as 
bad order as ever?'' asked the newspaperman. 

"To that I unhesitatingly say, No ! Those rookeries have 
been allowed to decay for years," declared the Monocle. 

"Again, I will ask you whether the class of tenants un- 
der discussion would guard and maintain the property if it 
were put in good condition?" 

"There should be regulations that would require of each 
tenant a proper care of the property and a strict observance 
of hygienic rules. Should he be careless of sanitary laws 
and order, his obstinacy could be met with ejectment, after 
due caution, of course. Such a stand on the part of the 
landlord would teach the poor class to respect, and, ulti- 
mately, admire the regulations compelling cleanliness." 

"But can you teach that class?" asked the newspaper- 
man. 

"If the untamed savage can be reached and shown the 
advantage of civilization, why could not those of the care- 
less poor be brought to appreciate the benefits to be derived 
from reasonable care of property and, also, the inestimable 



ACCEPTED 89 

blessing and comfort to be gained from the use of soap? 
There is much persuasive power in invitation and encour- 
agement. So let your rent-gatherer invite scrupulous care 
on the part of the tenant. A kindly word will go a great 
way and will, nine cases out of ten, create appreciation and 
good will. It is too often the case that the rent-collector 
bulldozes and blusters and snaps at the luckless occupant of 
a rookery-shamble, taking his rent something after the 
fashion of a hungry wolf pouncing upon its prey. If the 
landlord would do his share, I guarantee you that the hous-" 
ing of the poor would no longer remain a troublesome theme 
to the philanthropist and sociologist.'' 



The Inflated is going 
up all the time. 



CDe Daily Inflated 



Get a Hymnal 

with Sunday's Issue. 



Vol. XXIV 



New York, Thursday, September 19th, 1901 



Price B Cents 



HOSPITAL SCANDAL— LIT- 
TLE ACCOMMODATION 

FOR THE POOR- 
RED TAPE A TERROR! 
The press of this city has 
often protested against the slip- 
shod methods and faulty medi- 
cal opinions practiced and de- 
cided in certain hospitals. The 
poor suffer too often a lack of 
attention, and, consequently, 
their pain is accelerated by 
forms and red tape and a want 
of adequate accommodation. 
The press of this city, some 
while ago, exposed the shock- 
ing treatment of the insane 
poor. The revelations were 
such as to cause a shudder in 
the whole community. The 
fact is there is not sufficient 
accommodation for the sick 
poor; a matter that will sooner 
or later have to be looked into 
with the same thoroughness as 
is shown for crippled animals 
by the watchful officials of the 
Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Animals. Here is a 
chance for the gold-weighted 
Philanthropist, if he would 
have his name engraved on the 
memory of all mankind. We 
are sure that this matter has 
only to be brouglit to the atten- 
tion of those good Philanthro- 
pists who are ever ready to 
heed and adopt advice in behalf 
of the helpless sufferer. 

SO 



THE PHILANTHROPIST RE- 
CEIVES ATTENTION 
FROM THE 
MOIiOGLE 
INTERVIEWED ON THE 
SUBJECT OP FABU- 
LOUS GIFTS 
TO WELL PROTECTED IN- 

STTTUTIONS. 

HAS MUCH OF MOMENT TO 

SUGGEST. 

"Naturally you have given 
our great and good Philan- 
thropists a thought?" the news- 
paperman asked, with a smile. 

"You have among you many 
estimable and extraordinarily 
wealthy gentlemen, whose phil- 
anthropy, if it can be so 
called, tends toward the filling 
of the coffers of your colleges 
and universities, founding 
chairs of learning and building 
Public Libraries in cities where 
excellent libraries already ex- 
ist." 

"Your answer is not sug- 
gestive of praise for such mag- 
nanimity," the newspaperman 
said plainly and with a super- 
cilious smile. 

"How can you expect me to 
reach the sublime height of en- 
tluisiasm v^hen I consider that, 
at least, some of the millions 
being donated in the cause of 
education, already well and 
generously cared for, might be 
divided so as to alleviate the 
suffering of many of the help- 
less among us? While acknowl- 



ACCEPTED 91 

edging the needs of education, I cannot forget that there 
exists intense and agonizing suffering at your very doors. 
There are pleas from your hungry and prayers from your 
crippled; there are death-beds made scenes of horror by 
reason of the deplorable poverty and the murdering-starva- 
tion of the one passing to the Great Beyond. Oh, ye build- 
ers of costly libraries, ye great and good men, would that 
your foot-steps strayed into the courts and the alleys, the 
by-ways, alias sad-ways, the tottering brick barracks of the 
army of the poor, scorched and baking furnaces in your tor- 
rid summers and Arctic regions m your relentless winters ! 
Your agents, your representatives, your parsons, priests, 
missionaries, Salvationists (good souls), can in one breath 
divulge to ye stories of poverty, that would make ye feel 
like turning those magnificent book-homes into Asylums 
and Eetreats for those who, through misfortune alone, are 
being dragged down, down, down, deeper and deeper ; hun- 
gry for love, hungry for one word of hope, hungry for the 
touch of a kindly hand, hungry for a last consoling word.'' 

"But won't the advancement of education, in time, les- 
sen the suffering ?" asked the newspaperman. 

"First of all the material condition of the masses must be 
cared for, the body nourished and properly housed. WitB 
that foundation successfully accomplished, would come 
the desire to devour the Philanthropist's literature." 

"What would you, as a world-wide traveler and student 
of human nature suggest, supposing that I had the good 
fortune to seek the distribution of a few stray millions?" 
asked the newspaperman. 

THE PKOPER HOUSING OF THE POOR A GREAT 
NECESSITY. 

"I would say to you this," replied the Monocle, "I would 
say : Expend, at any rate, a part of the money you wish to 



92 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

distribute for the welfare of mankind, in the erection of 
model dwellings to be let out at such rental as would meet 
the convenience of the very limited pockets of the most 
lowly and, at the same time, to be arranged so as to cover 
the expense of conducting and keeping the establishments 
in the best possible condition. Flats on the same principle 
as the Model Lodging Houses of London, with spacious 
court-yards for the benefit of the children, should be 
adopted and all should be under the watchful management 
of an intellectual superintendent; intellectual, mind you, 
who would demand that cleanliness and good order be rig- 
orously observed on the part of the tenants. I would call 
the foundation of such institutions good philanthropy and, 
besides, they would be lasting monuments to the generous 
founders. Mind you,I do not presume for a moment to criti- 
cise the noble gentlemen who lavish their millions for the 
educational advancement of their less fortunate brothers, 
but, I do think that much of the money could be dis- 
tributed in the manner I suggest, a course which would 
prove a blessing and a saviour to many thousands." 



THE CHILDEEN OF THE POOR WOULD REAP 

THE BENEFIT, SAYS THE MONOCLE, AT THE 

SAME TIME AGREEING THAT THERE 

IS PLENTY OF CHARITY IN OUR 

FAIR LAND. 

"The children of the poor, especially, would be benefited. 
They would be benefited by the superior surroundings, and, 
in that alone, a brighter, cleaner, more circumspect life 
might be expected. You have many more great and good 
hearted men who are probably contemplating as to the best 
means of helping their fellow-citizens. No better gift could 



ACCEPTED 93 

be made, no more needed institutions could be founded as 
a result of their munificence than the Model Lodging 
Houses I take the liberty to suggest/^ 



THE MONOCLE SEES GREAT GOOD IN THE 
WORLD. 

"The world/' continued the Monocle, "grows greater 
and richer every day and with the marvelous accumula- 
tion of wealth, of course, it is a glorious state to note the 
unselfish and extraordinary dispensation of means to aid 
in the betterment of the people's education. In face of 
such munificence I marvel at the audacity of men who set 
themselves up as censors, denouncers and enemies of the 
rich ;of men too ready to influence and distract the minds of 
their blind followers. Those very men who cry down curses 
upon the heads of the wealthy, might probably not do half, 
or a quarter, as well did fortune endow them with the same 
riches. It really only needs the distribution of such 
stupendous sums of money, as have been given, in the direc- 
tion which will more directly reach the masses, to make 
them understand and know and feel that the generous 
givers of millions have striven to accumulate wealth, not 
alone for themselves and their families, but for the good of 
all mankind. Who, my dear sir, will deny that we are liv- 
ing in an age of generosity? Who will dare stand up to- 
day and, in all conscience, acclaim the moneyed man an 
enemy of the common people? Never was such charity 
known as now, never was the world in so bright a condition, 
never were the people of all nations so arrayed in the armor 
of industry and thrift. And the keener the competition 
between the respective nations, the better shall it be for all. 
Competition is an exhilarating elixir. It infuses into the 
blood a desire to do better than one's neighbor ; it keeps the 



94 INTEBVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

wheel of industry revolving and, consequently, if not all, 
then the greater part of the world is employed. The poor 
will be wherever you go, wheresoever you may turn, and 
for that class which in your great Metropolis, as in all other 
cities, must, it seems, be present, I have already spoken. I 
have pointed out the terribly dilapidated, uninviting and 
crime-germed condition of their homes. If my views are 
heeded, the lives of the unfortunate may be made more 
bearable and fit to withstand the climatic severities which 
even cut down those who are comfortably and luxuriously 
sheltered. Yes, my de&r sir, there is plenty of charity in 
your fair land, but does it always find its way along the 
right channels?" 



Get our pictures of 
Justice as we see it. 



Cbe Daily Tnflatca 



See our Political 
Cartoons. 



Vol. XXIV 



New York, Friday, September 20th, 1901 



Price 5 Cents 



STRANGE FORMS OF JUS- THE MONOCLE IS DEEPLY 



TICE. 

IS THERE EQUALITY IN 

OUR LAW COURTS, OR 

ONE LAW FOR RICH 

AND ONE FOR 

THE POOR? 

Mr. Brazen Nuggets, who as 
far back as two years ago was 
charged with embezzling the 
funds of the Bing-Go Bang 
Bank, this city, which proceed- 
ing brought ruin upon some 
thousands of citizens, was 
brought up for sentence yester- 
day. Owing to the prostrate 
condition of his great grand- 
mother, Mr. Brazen Nuggets 
was released on his own recog- 
nizance, which means that 
there is no immediate fear of 
his ever receiving a sentence 
for his breach of trust as man- 
ager of the defunct bank. 

In the same court Thomas 
Strivehard was sentenced to 
three months for getting an 
honest living, but without first 
having obtained a peddler's 
license to do so. 

For stealing a loaf, Sandy 
Breadless was sentenced to ten 
years' imprisonment. His wife 
pleaded that starvation in- 
stigated her husband to commit 
the larceny. The sickly appear- 
ance of her six children in court 
quite corroborated her state- 
ment. A collection was taken 
up for the poor family in the 
court room. The Society for 
the Protection of Women and 
Children took up the case. 



IMPRESSED WITH THE 

WANT OF ADMINIS- 

ISTRATION OF 

JUSTICE. 

SAYS THAT IN THIS LAND 

OF BOASTED EQUALITY 
THERE IS A CONSPICUOUS 
ABSENCE OF THAT DE- 
SIRABLE AND NECES- 
SARY COMMODITY. 

"You will admit, and, doubt- 
less, you have observed, that 
every man has a chance in this 
country," said the newspaper- 
man. 

"I would like to remark that 
it is really very satisfactory to 
say the kindest things of every- 
one and of everything. It is a 
source of pleasure to record the 
best, but it is, you must own, a 
false sentiment to pass over 
glaring faults, to gloss over 
those injustices which exist or 
treat lightly those things which 
conspire to make justice a 
farce and trial by jury a Gil- 
bertian extravaganza. '^ 

"Please explain." 

"Only this morning, sir, I 
clipped from one of your very 
important and excellent jour- 
nals the following: 

" 'It seems to be easy enough 
to convict a man who steals a 
loaf of bread, but when it comes 
to the looting of a bank or a 
United States Mint insur- 
mountable obstacles seem to be 
in the way of getting at the 
culprit!' 



P? 



96 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

"And referring to a financial crash in Germany, another 
editorial comments: 

" 'We have yet, however, to see whether German law pun- 
ishes financial escapades more certainly and more severely 
than they are punished in this country, where our State and 
National Constitutions are a great protection to rich 
rogues !' 

"Those expressions, sir, I give you from an eminently 
representative, clean, conservative and able United States 
paper ; and so it seems to me, after a careful and unpreju- 
diced observation, an observation corroborated by your 
watchful and clever Journals, that your justice miscarries 
and is even dallied with and made the most pronounced of 
failures in numbers of, and exceedingly, flagrant cases/' 

"You mean to say in all candor that we fail in that most 
vital institution?^' asked the newspaperman. 

"Your people say so and your newspapers know so and 
say so. But if you are satisfied to allow your guilty ones 
to escape on mere playful and convenient technicalities that 
is your business. The injustices are palpable and many." 

"Will you cite a few instances?'' the newspaperman 
asked, evidently much interested in the subject. 

"Instances occur daily," went on the Monocle, "and no 
man is such a dunder-headed blockhead as not to notice 
them and regret the flagrant and malodorous miscarriages 
of your justice which smell to the depths of Hell !" 

"Do you infer that our judicial machinery is all wrong?" 
the newspaperman asked. 

"I charge that the works are decidedly out of gear, and 
that for the good of society the sooner repaired and brought 
up to a normal and civilized condition the better it will be 
for the security of life and property." 

"What, then, is the matter?" asked the newspaperman. 

"Yes, what, indeed, is the matter ? I asked myself, when 
only recently I read in your papers of a gentleman who had 



ACCEPTED &7 

been summering and wintering for ten years in a prison in 
the State of Washington, he having been condemned to 
death time and time again, yet, for that long period suc- 
cessfully availed himself of technicalities — technicalities, 
not justice, mind you, to rob the rope of its just attach- 
ment. Thinlv of it, that a man adjudged guilty can dodge 
the executioner for ten years ! Such a marvel, together with 
his legal champion, ought to have been pensioned for his 
natural life and relegated to your most prominent law 
libraries as authority in the art of baffling the courts, and 
as an expert in monkeying with your scales of justice. 
Verily, the poor starving outcast who robs the baker of his 
penny roll receives a thousand times punishment and 
degradation, yet your high-class, money-propped scoundrel 
and rogue somehow escapes that stern justice which is sup- 
posed to stand for rich and poor alike. Men found guilty 
of cowardly murder after exhaustive trials, even in your 
great City of New York, where one would naturally sup- 
pose Justice must be secured to all, find loop-holes through 
which they are successfully drawn by their adroit counsel ; 
of course all this, providing the criminal is able to supply 
the money to juggle with your jurisprudence. And in 
face of all this you have the sublime assurance to boast 
equality! Your refined, educated and society-pampered 
murderer wins floral crowns, bouquets and release, while 
your anemic, untaught, uncultivated and brain-stunted 
murderer must bow his uncanny head to justice and suffer 
the flesh-singeing death-volts of your electric chair.''* 



"J^B.^ MONOCLE ASSAILS OUE LYNCHING 
PAKTIES. 

"It is said in defense of your self-elected executioners, 
othervv^ise lynchers, that they resort to hangings and burn- 

97-7 



98 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

ings at the stake for the reason that they have no confidence 
in the very men they themselves choose to administer the 
law. One can quite understand a community arising in 
indignation against the perpetrators of a brutal act, but it 
seems incomprehensible that a people desiring that the law 
shall be observed, should be so eager themselves to break 
law and order, defy authority, and outrage, by the most 
barbaric methods, every sense of humanity and justice. I 
read a terrible account in your papers of the lynching of 
some men who were alleged to have stolen some trivial ar- 
ticles. Without trial or explanation a mob conducted them, 
according to reports dragged them, with ropes around their 
necks to their murder. The authorities took the matter 
up, but it was freely admitted that a jury would be afraid 
to convict the lynchers. If, therefore, your law-breakers 
are powerful enough to successfully threaten, or intimidate, 
those who may be called upon to decide as to the guilt or in- 
nocence of the accused, then were it not better to ring down 
the curtain on the evident farce of Trial by Jury ? By your 
very inaction and failure to bring the guilty barbarians to 
the bar of Justice you admit a startling weakness. You own 
up that the mob is stronger than your courts. You take 
for granted that the rising of a score or more of blood- 
thirsty citizens may supersede your judges and laugh to 
scorn the admirable law writ on the pages of your statute 
books. Your Press calls for Justice, demands the in- 
dictment of your lynchers, deplores the disgrace that such 
law-breakers bring down upon the community, but all to 
no avail. If, by chance, an indictment were found, it would 
doubtless be pigeon-holed or lost forever in the political 
sewers." 

"You must remember that such intimidation exists only 
in the sparsely populated districts," declared the news- 
paperman, "that is, if such a condition really exists." 



ACCEPTED 99 

"Exists !" cried the Monocle aghast at the interviewer's 
attempt to doubt the existence of actual fear in those men, 
who under oath, and as good citizens, are called upon to 
do their duty fearlessly and without favor. "Such an ad- 
mission of cowardly submission to mob-rule is, to say the 
least, deplorable/' 

"The highest and the most lowly of our people live under 
a glorious protection !" exclaimed the newspaperman. 

"Where is the protection when men are suffered to be 
dragged from their homes like dogs and hanged, burned at 
the stake or otherwise maltreated and maimed without so 
much as a hearing?" asked the Monocle. "We must look 
these eccentricities of your liberty-loving people squarely in 
the eye." 

"Do you not think the provocation justifies the results ?" 
asked the newspaperman. 

"Your laws do not provide, because you are provoked, 
you may take life to satisfy your outraged feelings. You 
have ample law, you elect a sufficient number of upright 
Judges and you maintain all the requisites to punish of- 
fenders legally without having to resort to those barbaric 
methods which were practiced in the ages you are so ready 
to hold as exemplifying the dark past, compared with the 
enlightened present. Those communities which arrogate to 
themselves a license to defy your good law must be taught 
one day — ^let us hope not far distant — the power and the 
stern effect of your legal tribunals. As it is at present you 
have among you those who wantonly usurp the right to 
bring down punishment on the heads of the alleged wrong- 
doer, whereas they themselves are absolute and swaggering 
criminals in that they defy and ignore the very laws that 
have been framed purposely to secure that impartial and 
fair judgment which it is every man's right to expect and, 
I had supposed, to demand. It is a blot upon your fair 
nation when men assemble with rope and faggot to mete 



100 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

out punishment on men and women to whom they even 
deny the inalienable right of defense! The miscreant- 
executioners make sure their victims shall die not only an 
ignominious, but an awful death, and yet the unfortunates 
might be able to prove their innocence were they permitted 
the opportunity to offer, even, explanation. On mere hear- 
say, or suspicion, your lynchers hasten in gala fashion to 
outrage the honor and the dignity of the law-abiding of 
your great land." 



BULL FIGHTS AND MASSACRES IN FOEEIGN 

LANDS DISTURB US, YET LYNCHING 

IS TOLERATED. 

"You shrink at the brutality in the arena when crim- 
soned and bespattered with the blood of the helpless beasts 
which fall from the flesh-piercing jabs and the slashing 
cuts of the Toreador. You are horrified, horrified, horrified 
at the slaughter of our fellows by a people who feel 
aggrieved by what to them seems our impertinent inter- 
ferences with their mode of worship. They resent our in- 
trusion upon their privacy and our meddling with their 
centuries-old manners and customs; still we do not relax 
our inroads into their homes and we threaten the existence 
of their beloved institutions. They rebel and assassinate 
the destroyers of their ancient prerogatives, but is their 
assassination of the impudent intruders and meddlers and 
wreckers of their ancient, and to them satisfactory, cus- 
toms, worse, or so bad as the deplorable and vicious lynch- 
ings that occur in your very midst — wanton, cruel murders 
by those who have had the advantage of modern civiliza- 
tion, refined ecclesiasticism and improved and ideal govern- 
ment? Halt your soldiers and anchor your marvelous sea- 
batteries and look first to it that your own house is clear 



ACCEPTED 101 

of those assassins and inhuman monsters who drag prob- 
ably many an innocent one to a shocking and spectacular 
death r 

"Then you won^t admit that our exceedingly dilatory and 
uncertain methods of administering Justice, palliate to 
some extent the peremptory and extreme measures some 
times adopted to secure quick punishment?" asked the 
newspaperman. 

"You cannot advance even the slow-coach methods of 
your law-courts as an excuse for mob-law/' the Monocle 
declared emphatically. 

"At any rate, you will acknowledge that if the accused 
were quickly tried, as, for instance, would be the case in 
your country, there would be an end to the people taking 
the law into their own hands?" asked the newspaperman. 

"It seems to me you have a class among you always ready 
and equipped to carry out vengeance wherever and when- 
ever an opportunity presents itself. You have your White- 
caps ; you have those who go about smashing and destroying 
property in the name of something or other ; you have those 
who take upon themselves the right to expel a fellow-citizen 
from their midst just because they feel like doing so; and 
you boast of others equally officious and offensively imper- 
tinent, despotic, cruel and unmerciful. I, an alien, since 
you request my views, ask you: How dare a set of your 
bullies and your irresponsibles ignore your law and trample 
on the rights of others who are not in sympathy with the 
lawless putting to death of a fellow-creature? The PooBahs 
who promote and compose your Quick-Execution-Assem- 
blies are not one whit better than Sicilians and Neapoli- 
tans, who with bloody knife sustain the Mafia ; they are de- 
cidedly more atrocious than the almond-eyed defenders of 
Confucius — the Boxers, and, indeed, may be placed on 
equal and parallel lines with the distinguished cowards 



102 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

who assassinate under the name and by the grace of those 
subterranean rodents, the Highbinders/' 

"Do you not allow your sympathy to get the better of your 
judgment?'' asked the newspaperman. 

"Sympathy and judgment in my case are synonymous. 
When I read a short while ago of the barbaric lynching of 
a mother, daughter and son my sympathy for the outraged 
was unbounded, while my judgment, naturally, prompted 
me to condemn the miscreants in a manner unqualifiedly 
bitter. The newspaper reports of the lynching showed how 
the three were hanged, their bodies riddled with bullets; 
how the lynchers ignored appeals even from a Judge and 
District Attorney who were brushed aside, and went on to 
describe the tearful prayers and entreaties of the unfor- 
tunate women for mercy, the arrival of the Governor of the 
State some few minutes, however, after the lynching had 
been accomplished, and his earnest command to the people 
to remember their duty as citizens and their obligations to 
the law. In spite of appeals it was feared that ten others 
might be done to death by the lynchers, consequently, the 
Governor ordered troops to be ready to rush to the scene 
of the outrages. The very next day there were no less than 
three more accounts of men done to death under exactly 
the same lawless circumstances. Again, a day or two later, 
your papers came out with further startling announcements 
which read as follows : 

" 'Murderer of a Eancher's Wife Eoasted to Death,' 
and 

" 'Three Innocent Men Put to Death.' 

"Heaven knows your Press is outspoken enough in its 
condemnation of these frequent and increasing defiances 
of the law, and as one influential journal remarked editor- 
ially: 



ACCEPTED 103 

" ^That such acts disgrace our Nation and tend 
to graver consequences than many realize is suffi- 
ciently evident/ 

"The hour is not far distant when such deeds must be 
prevented by a firm, if terrible example, for if your civil 
law is not equal to the occasion, then your military power 
will be expected to back it up and enforce it/' 

STEALING FRANCHISES. 

"I think you will admit that we are a free and easy peo- 
ple, won't you ?" 

"You are most certainly a most easy people when the 
Civic officers of one of your most delightful and prosperous 
cities are actually allowed to give away a valuable fran- 
chise in spite of the fact that an enterprising and reputable 
townsman, smarting under the questionable action, comes 
forward and makes a handsome m^oney offer of over two 
million dollars for the same privileges. Your papers de- 
clare the arrangement between the City Fathers and the 
Corporation 'A Steal,' and then it is that your citizens 
awake from their lethargy and cry out, 'Corruption !' Your 
financiers smile sardonically and the good-hearted gentle^ 
men, who have so generously voted to give up the city's 
valuable property for not so much as the value of a peanut, 
remain complaisant and snug. Verily, dear brother as 
thou sayst, thou art an easy people, but, the gods confound 
me, if you are a free people. This illustration is but one 
proof of how effectually you are led by the nose by thdse 
in whom you admit you have no confidence whatsoever. It 
is all very strange yet it may only be the barbed-wire eccen- 
tricities which hedge in a Free-Voting People." 



CDC Daily imam 



Vol. XXIV 



New York, Saturday, September 21st, 1901 Price 5 Cents 



THE DAILY INFLATED TO 

THE CITIZENS OF THE 

U. S. A. 

A JOURNALISTIC PRONUN- 
CIAMENTO. 

It is seldom that we venture, 
editorially, upon the first page 
of this paper, and when we 
have done so it has been to ex- 
pose some opinion on moment- 
ous National events. Once 
more the sound of the assassin's 
pistol shot has been heard and 
a brave and true and tender- 
hearted gentleman, the Chief- 
Executive of our land, has been 
the victim. Be it known to all 
good men that we arise in in 
dignation, with hearts, at the 
same time, bleeding with sad 
ness and welling over with love 
and respect for the memory of 
the stricken one. We denounce 
in unmeasured terms those who 
incite to riot and encourage the 
less fortunate to believe that 
the^ hand of the wealthy is 
against them. 

We applaud those who would 
harmonize the classes, and we 
express abhorrence of those who 
create class-hatred, disruption 
and bloody lawlessness. 

It is our duty, one and all, 
if we regard the welfare of our 
fair country, to call a halt and 
make it understood that while 
freedom shall ever be enjoyed 
license shall be stopped in its 
impudent inroads and insidi- 
ous progress. 



THE MONOCLE PAYS HIGH 

TRIBUTE TO OUR 

MARTYRED PRESIDENT. 

TIMELY OBSERVATIONS 

WORTH STUDYING.— 
FLAYS THE UNPATRIOTIC 
POLITICIANS AND 
DEALS WITH 
THE ALIEN AND THE AS- 
SIMILATED VOTER. 

A representative of The In- 
flated again interviewed the 
Monocle yesterday, when mat- 
ters of political importance 
were discussed as they affect 
Municipal affairs. The Monocle 
also paid graceful homage to 
our Presidents, past and pres- 
ent. 

"Politics plays a too obstru- 
sive part in your land. Its ex- 
ponents, in a vast number of 
cases, are, according to authen- 
tic reports, positively devoid 
of honor and patriotism. Theg 
depend solely upon politics for 
a livelihood, caring not a straw 
for name or country, so long 
as their mercenary object is 
successful. Some call them 
'Smart,' others, the honest folk, 
call them by their proper name 
— 'Knaves!' I would add to 
that and call them Traitors. 
They have no care for the wel- 
fare of the Nation nor the city 
they do, or would, control. They 
have no scruples in bartering 
and selling the rights of the 
people; they do so every day 
of their lives. They have not 
the first idea of political 
honor — political rascality is 
their motto and, taking all 



104 



ACCEPTED 105 

things into consideration, they do exceedingly well, that is, 
for themselves. I often wonder if they stop to think of the 
unfathomable depth of their consummate audacity! But, 
like all knaves, I suppose they laugh coldly and heedlessly 
up their narrow sleeves as they scoop in their ill-gotten 
spoils. Frequently it is charged that the man with a TulF 
controls not alone the political machine but the courts and 
the court officials as well. Evidently the man with a Tull' 
has an easy time of it, while his unfortunate dependents 
must be depleted, riddled and bankrupted at his hands. 
Such a man has no mercy. He is a drainer, an octopus, a 
leech, and ought as such to be loosened of his inglorious 
grip and lashed beyond the city's boundary. You have men 
of untarnished name and pure reputation, men who value 
the honor of their country more than life itself, yet when 
all the outcry rises above the house tops against corruption 
and dirty politics, their honored names are rarely an- 
nounced for office. I say, out with your beer-stained, malo- 
dorous pot-house politician ! Dismiss him ! Ignore him ! 
Overshadow him if he will obtrude the presence of his un- 
holy substance side by side with the substantial and pa- 
triotic form of the intelligent, the honorable and the self- 
aacrificing ! If you love your cities, if you revere your coun- 
try, band yourselves into one immense and impregnable 
body with the resolution that the most noble of your men are 
alone fit to sit in your Municipal Assemblies. I would go 
so far as to prohibit other than American-born from holding 
any Government office, National or Civic. I believe v.qth 
those Americans who say : America for Americans ; at the 
same time, outside of official positions, assuring all the 
hospitality and social and business advantages to the 
naturalized citizen. That gentleman, the naturalized cit- 
izen, should not be entitled to vote for at least five years 
after he has been adopted, when his fitness might be de- 
termined. From what I have seen it strikes me very for- 



106 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

cibly that some of the most disgruntled among you, some 
of the most bitter antagonists to your law, some of the 
most vicious denouncers of peace and order and the railers 
against high and distinguished authority, are those you 
have adopted, in the hope and trust that you were giving 
into their safe and honorable keeping the key to the cham- 
bers whence come the laws of Protection, Justice, National 
Dignity and Popular Eight. It is that very class that spits 
on respectability and hydrophobically froths its cheers for 
its own demoralized set. It is apparently a mighty 
strong voice, but not so strong, I ween, but what it could be 
muffled by the more contented and patriotic of your glor- 
ious land/^ 

''Do you mean that this free country should limit free- 
dom of speech ?" asked the newspaperman. 

"Limit anything that is annoying and stop anything that 
is dangerous," returned the Monocle. "And, my dear sir, 
do you not think it advisable, also, to enquire well and 
thoroughly into the healthful political as well as social 
antecedents of those suspicious persons entering this coun- 
try?" 

"While agreeing with you," returned the newspaper- 
man, "I might ask whether you were not in some way 
affiliated with the late Li Hung Chang?" 

"How so ?" asked the Monocle. 

"Well, I am here to interview you, but I find, instead, 
that you are interviewing me." 

"Yes, possibly, I may have inherited the art of Oriental 
jugglery from a paternal Monocle that had the privilege 
of a long diplomatic residence in that flowery land, which 
recently might have been plucked into a half score of 
pieces by as many longing Nations, but for the distraction 
of the cunning and subtle entertainment by Impressario. 
Li Hung Chang, entitled 'How to Hoodwink the Great 
Powers, or, Celestial Illnsions.' But some, sir, learn from 



ACCEPTED 107 

silent observation, while I, following the method of my 
lamented friend Li, it is true, reap an advant- 
age from questioning those who, knowing so much 
more than myself, would, strangely enough, ques- 
tion me. But there is one great and momentous sub- 
ject before the eyes of your country; a subject which sev- 
enty-three millions of people have been made to hear in two 
pistol shots; shots only from a thirty-two calibre revolver, 
yet with a report so loud, together with an object so 
dastardly, and an injury to a lovable, good and generous 
man so deep that all human forbearance has at last been 
reached and the cry of your Nation, a cry in one sonorous 
voice, echoed by other sympathetic Nations, calls for 
safety for authority, and rightly demands respect and sup- 
port for all good and accepted government. The peoples 
of the world have stood with one throbbing and weeping 
heart at the bedside of your beloved, martyred President. 
We wept together on the receipt of the first shocking intel- 
ligence; we prayed together that the Great Providence 
might spare to us that noble man whose untimely death 
was sought by one of the most despicahle cowards that have 
ever drawn the breath of life. We, in the consciousness of 
that awful suffering and the Christian fortitude of the 
stricken gentleman, act as one and with one object in 
denunciation of the lawless, in condemning the flippant 
insulter of authority, in making it plainly understood that 
the assassin and those who urge him can have no resting 
place in these lands; in giving expression of abhorrence of 
those who, in the guise of friends of the masses, inflame 
the already ungainly and crippled brains of fanatics, the 
ignorant and half-witted, and in sounding one ringing 
indictment against the greasy-palmed rascals who so 
malignantly and mischievously and traitorously attempt to 
spread an unreasoning and mad discord, by pitting class 



108 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

against class, the LABOEER against the CAPITALIST, 
the POOR against the RICH. 

"Your Presidents have all been gentlemen of the very- 
highest character," continued the Monocle, "and the people 
have always chosen wisely. The distinguished President, 
whose pure life was foully taken by the cowardly assassin, 
proved himself to be the man of the hour — statesmanlike, 
forbearing, conservative, charitable and in every sense 
fitted to lead this thrifty, pushing, seventy-three millions 
of people. He was a man of power, a man of many parts, 
a man of nerve, and one possessing the grand and solid 
foundation of a clean and honest conscience. I think no 
matter what complexion his politics, his bitterest political 
foe will admit so much. You have lately gone through a 
National, I might better say an International, trial, the 
conduct of which, besides placing you on an equality with 
the great fighting Nations of the world, proved the remark- 
able ability of the world-mourned martyred President. 
Generations yet to come will read of him as we have read 
of Washington and as we have known Lincoln, and, I dare 
say, with even a deeper thrill of enthusiasm." 

"Do I understand you to say that the martyred President 
will stand out even beyond the two great men you have 
named ?" asked the newspaperman. 

"That is my opinion — and my prediction. The times of 
Washington and Lincoln have changed. In their day, of 
course, heroic deeds were performed and great acts of 
statesmanship were achieved, but, when all was accom- 
plished, you settled down as a family. You were content 
in your own domain, and beyond that you were regarded 
as provincial. You had not awakened in the bosom of the 
outer world the admiration which was due you." 

"Why so ?" the newspaperman demanded. 

"For the very reason that you were satisfied to remain a 
quiet, peaceable, inoffensive circle ; you abstained from tak- 



ACCEPTED 10J> 

ing any decided or important part in the councils of the 
world." 

"Do you not think that it was much the wiser plan to 
nurse and nourish our enormous industries at home than 
to go abroad mingling with diplomats and taking part in 
international complications?'' asked the newspaperman. 

"My dear sir, you have leaped out from your shell ; you 
have, in a word, revealed yourselves, and having thus come 
into National existence among Nations, your prominence 
has been admitted with startling concern. With your new- 
born prominence has come a corresponding ascendency in 
the markets of the world; your industries have increased, 
your representatives abroad are respected as never before, 
your word is stronger, you are heeded where prior to this 
evolution you were politely acknowledged. Your youth 
has grown in ardor and respects with thrilling pride its 
flag for its true importance in every quarter of the globe; 
you have relieved the oppressed while you have successfully 
carried to them liberty and good government, and if your 
beneficiaries ever fail to fully avail themselves of the better 
condition you have so substantially bestowed upon them, 
in that case they will be the losers.'^ 

"Then you think we have the colonizing idea in good 
shape ?'' 

"As to that I would refer you and your doubting 
Tomases to the amazingly satisfactory improvements 
already effected in the lands you have recently acquired or 
protected. To the improved sanitary condition you have 
introduced, is due the better health of the people; to the 
reasonable law you have carried with you is due the tran- 
quility where before was fear, outrage, indescribable bar- 
barity and depravity, and on every hand official cruelty. 
You went, as it were, into a disordered household, made a 
thorough cleaning up and set everything in good order. 



110 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

having showered over the whole the blessings of a glorious 
liberty." 

"Do you believe us to be the hero worshipers that some 
would make us out to be?" asked the newspaperman. 

"Hero worshipers!" exclaimed the Monocle, in a tone 
full of wonder at the question; "you are a people without 
ideals. I have gathered from your very own lips, too, that 
you have not the slightest respect for ancestry, no matter 
how distinguished. You stubbornly refuse to admit that 
cast is just as distinguishing a feature of your society as 
it is in other countries. No, you will not admit the 
existence of cast here because you delight to swell up tur- 
key-cock fashion and cock-a-doodle the very hackneyed 
melodramatic heroic about all men being equal. As a pre- 
lude to a political election such platitude is useful; in 
normal conditions it is Tommyrot ! There have been those 
who have been good enough to inform me that because I 
am the subject of a Monarch I cannot possibly appreciate 
equality among all men." 

"Well," said the newspaperman, "I suppose you can- 
not." 

"In all candor, can you ?" rejoined the Monocle. "When 
your educated, well-groomed capitalist shall invite his 
bootblack to sit vis-a-vis at his club, or his home, and 
dally over the filberts and Madeira at his dinner table, we 
shall then, all of us, admit the kind of equality which you 
so easily boast. On earth, my friend, there can be equality 
only in the eyes of the legal tribunals which are supposed 
to dispense justice to rich and poor alike." 



ACCEPTED 111 

'IHE MONOCLE ASSAILS OUR TEEATMENT OF 
OUR HEROES. 

"Come, now, don't you think we have an immense ad- 
miration for our heroes?" demanded the nev/spaperman 
again. 

"At the moment of a triumph you exhibit frantic 
acknowledgment, but, oh, how rudely you can drag down 
your heroes from the Eiffel Tower pedestals on which, by 
common consent, in the moment of ecstasy, you place them. 
It would seem that neither sailor, soldier nor statesman 
can survive the cheers which, at the first moment of suc- 
cess, you roar out in their honor. You grasp at the slim- 
mest opportunity to make your hero the most uncomfort- 
able of gentlemen. After death, however, you give him 
his full reward.^' 

"It is our glorious prerogative, as a free people, to say 
what we think and act as we please,'' declared the news- 
paperman. 

"Well, then, in that case why do you deny your great 
men, your leaders, the same privilege to say and act as 
they please?" asked the Monocle. 

"They enjoy every privilege," said the newspaperman. 

"All right, but at the risk of being lampooned and be- 
littled. The hour is ripe for reminding you to stop this 
glorifying to-day and humiliating to-morrow. Forgive me 
if I say that it is ill-becoming a free and fair people. Even 
the youth of your country learns and indulges too much of 
the sort of freedom that distresses, consequently, he grows 
up with a modicum of reverence in his soul. For my part, 
I think the least free among you are the men who best 
serve you, and, I am sure, the most uncalled for and virile 
attacks, absolutely undeserved, mind you, fall upon some 
of your most honorable men. Having touched upon a 
subject affecting the conduct of your j^outh I would say: 



112 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

Let the father teach his son the many lessons of gallant 
and unselfish deeds performed by your soldiers and your 
sailors; let him denounce the picayune personalties that 
are invented solely with the object of diminishing the luster 
of hard-won glory; see to it that your youth is taught the 
nobility of the self-sacrificing and patriotic heads of your 
Nation, irrespective of the political religion they profess." 

"So you think the least free among us are those men 
who best serve us?" asked the newspaperman. "How do 
you account for it ?" 

"Without a doubt !" exclaimed the Monocle. "You ask 
too much of your statesmen; you harrass them; your 
criticism, too often unjust, commences before their term 
of office begins, and digs and pricks at them until they 
retire. You are not a graceful people so far as the treat- 
ment of your officials. You say of yourselves that you are 
nerve-strung to account for your impatience and meteoric 
impetuosity. While it is a hard matter to please every- 
body, yet I verily think your man in office ought to look 
around for an Abraham Lincoln to bring Emancipation 
for Executive Slavery !" 

"Then what in your opinion is fhe matter with the 
world ?" argued the newspaperman. 

"The fact is, the bold ribaldry, the malicious scandal 
and the inflammatory rhetoric of the day assume so high a 
temperature as to consume the world with what might be 
called the Eed-rhapsodical fever; a form of mental 
decay or irritation which is infectious and creative of a 
pulse that is false and positively alarming. The symp- 
toms, my dear sir, are sufficient to disturb the most pro- 
nounced optimist. Medical science, my boy, has done 
much to abate and arrest scarlet fever, yellow fever, 
typhoid, typhus and all the ravaging and distressing 
fevers known to medical science; and now that all such 
dangers are being minimized, when yellow fever germs are 



ACCEPTED 113 

declared to be carried to poor humanity by the inoculating 
and happily doomed mosquito, a new infection, and a 
dangerous one at that, is discovered in the Red-rhapsod- 
ical fever; a rousing, exciting, blood-sizzling infection 
which corrodes the heart anH rots the brain and brings 
ravage to those poor constitutions which through an unnat- 
ural weakness, inherited or assumed, are easily affected. 

'^Life is so beautiful, the gift of it so gracious, the 
world so noble, its hospitality so prodigious, that it seems 
now a good season to arrest the spread of the new fever, 
that existence may be pure as it once was and just as 
sedate and harmless, generous and healthful. A disin- 
fectant is essential then to resist the course of the malignant 
cases which have become almost an epidemic. A disin- 
fectant, as you know, is a purifier used to resist or 
counteract infection, but the exact particular remedy 
that must be discovered for the cooling, abatement and 
eradication of this Red-rhapsodical fever has not yet been 
determined, though it is quite positive that the cleanly por- 
tion of mankind will not wait long for protection against 
the insidious spread, but will bring into quick use a power- 
ful and stringent antidote.^' 



1 13-8 



The People's Paper. 
Always truthful. 



tbe Daily Mlaua 



All the news 
fit to read. 



Vol. XXIV 



New York, Sunday, September 22nd, 1901 



Price 5 Cents 



MAGISTRATE AND ATTOR- 
NEY COME ALMOST 
TO BLOWS. 

PHLIP CALLED COUNSEL- 
OR SOAK A LIAR, AND 
THE COURT, WHO 
FAVORS SOAK, 
TOOK 
A HAND IN THE UN- 
SEEMLY AND DIS- 
GRACEFUL SCENE. 

A disgraceful row occurred 
in Magistrate Snarle's Court 
yesterday, when Attorney Plilip 
called Counselor Soak a liar. 
Blows were prevented by Mag- 
istrate Snarl's, who, in fighting 
attitude, threatened, himself, to 
throw Phlip out of the Court 
room. 

Court was adjourned and the 
lawyers subsequently settled 
their differences at the bar of 
an adjoining saloon. The un- 
seemly scenes enacted in Magis- 
trate Snarl's Court are at- 
tracting widespread attention. 

On the reassembling of the 
Court, the well-known financier, 
Mr. B. A. Pitch, was ushered 
into the presence of Mr. Snarl, 
on a complaint insinuating that 
he had obtained money under 
false pretenses, and, also, with 
having used money entrusted to 
him by confiding clients. On the 
application of Mr. Diamondbe-j 
decked, his attorney, the case 
was adjourned sine die, the 
Court expressing regret for any 
inconvenience the accused fi- 
nancier had suffered. 



THE CONDUCT OF OUR 
POLICE COURTS FINDS 
DISFAVOR IN THE 
EYE OF THE 
MONOCLE. 
FLIPPANT COURT OF- 
FICERS AND UNDIGNIFIED 
LAWYERS MAKE A 
STRANGE GROUP. 

"Having taken in so much 
of your country and your coun- 
try's institutions; its magnifi- 
cent colleges and universities, 
its already very capital librar- 
ies, erected without philan- 
thropic aid, and your museums 
and your art galleries, your 
parks and your gardens, your 
great lakes and picturesque 
rivers, your overcrowded, tot- 
tering tenements and your 
princely palaces, I peeped into 
your Police Courts," said the 
Monocle, "and I have watched 
the proceedings with curious at- 
tention and a good deal of in- 
terest." 

"Will you give me your ex- 
periences?" asked the news- 
paperman. 

"A few, I am sure, will suf- 
fice to show you with what lit- 
tle regard the poor and the un- 
fortunate are treated. Your 
Police Courts, or those of them 
I have visited, are hot-beds of 
misery and degradation. Your 
Magistrates, in the first place, 
do not insist on obedience and 
respect. The court officers are 
lacking in docility and amiabil- 



114 



ACCEPTED 115 

ity. They are boorish, loud-mouthed, domineering crea- 
tures, with, comparatively, more authority than a Supreme 
Court judge. I can safely say, without fear of contra- 
diction, that the pleasant words, Tlease' and 'Thank you,* 
were never taught them during babyhood, youth or man- 
hood." 

"You see they are mostly all self-taught men," said the 
newspaperman. 

"That is quite evident," agreed the Monocle. 

"What was it that most offended your sensitiveness?" 
demanded the newspaperman. 

"Better ask me what it was that aroused my pity and 
astonishment," responded the Monocle. "I saw and heard 
many strange things. I think it most unfair, for instance, 
that an accused must tolerate the undertone discussions 
which, while his case is under trial, take place between 
lawyer and magistrate. The sotto-voce confabs cannot be 
caught by the prisoner, the party most interested, . who 
hears absolutely nothing of what is said against or for 
him until a rough hand shoves him along with the accom- 
panying words: 

" 'Get along out of this ! You've got six months to re- 
pent.' 

" 'What do you mean ?' asks the bewildered prisoner. 

" 'Why, didn't you hear the judge sentence you to six 
months ?' 

" 'No, I didn't,' the surprised prisoner replies. 

"And another brutal shove and both officer and unfor- 
tunate disappear. The unlucky man was right; the Mag- 
istrate mumbled the sentence and few, in truth, heard it. 
The whole business is slip-shod. Half the time the 
accused cannot even hear what their well-paid lawyers 
are talking about; indeed, the whole procedure is lax, 
uncouth, brutal and a travesty on Justice and civilization. 
A policeman affirms, and, turning to the Magistrate, in- 



116 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

stead of speaking so all within the Court shall hear 
him, mumbles his evidence in a perfunctory, listless 
manner and the obliging attorneys, to aid him in his dif- 
fidence to speak aloud, move closer to the witness box, alias 
stand, and by that concession to the witness, are enabled 
to hear the charge he makes against their client. Yes, in 
nine cases out of ten, poor prisoner hears nothing, or very 
little, of what is taking place; consequently, he cannot 
properly defend himself, even though he is represented by 
an attorney. The officials and the lawyers are so accus- 
tomed to this go-as-you-please, slovenly characteristic of 
some of your Police Courts that it must be left to the casual 
stranger, or the prisoner himself, to see and appreciate the 
injustice of the proceedings. So far as I could see, an 
accused has absolutely no chance at all, and, shame to say 
it, there is little or no consideration for him. On the 
other hand, a man or woman of some sort of distinction 
is called upon to answer a charge, and the Magistrate, good 
creature, who can be considerate under some circumstances, 
places his private room at his, or her, disposal. Therefore 
it seems to me that your boasted democracy is cruelly incon- 
sistent as illustrated even in the difference in treatment 
of your poor, unfortunate prisoner and your snug, well- 
groomed, seal-mantled accused." 

"What would you do in the matter?" asked the news- 
paperman. 

'TTou know very well what I would do in the matter; 
and I know you, a newspaperman, would act exactly as I 
would act. I would have every witness, every policeman, 
deliver his evidence in a voice so clear that there could be 
no misunderstanding his statements. His words would 
be heard throughout the Court. Attorney, too, would 
have to be distinct, deliberate and audible. I would have 
the words of the Magistrate equally distinct and, further, 
I would permit no class or east favor. As it stands to-day. 



ACCEPTED 117 

a Police Court proceeding, in your city, as I viewed it, is 
a jumble accompanied by clatter and chatter and every- 
thing else but dignity. I give you this observation for 
the reason that the all-important subject appeals to me as 
calling, in the name of humanity and fairness, for a speedy 
and salutory change/' 

PERJUEY RAMPANT IN OUR COURTS. 

"Assuming that all you charge is correct, do you not 
think that the Courts offer safety and protection for all ?" 

"Until your people are taught to appreciate the gravity 
and solemnity of the law, until they are made to under- 
stand that punishment will surely and swiftly follow per- 
jury, there can be no safety or protection in your Courts 
of law,'' declared the Monocle. 

"On what grounds do you base your charge ? What 
foundation have you for so grave an indictment against 
our veracity ?" the newspaperman demanded. 

"Observation," replied the Monocle. 

"Your observation, I fear, may be the result of bias or 
prejudice, or, possibly, your not quite understanding our 
form of legal procedure," said the newspaperman. 

"Then I find it my bounden duty to back up my asser- 
tion with the unbiased and unprejudiced corroboration of 
the president of the Bar Association of one of your States. 
*^Where is there a lawyer,' he asks, Vho has not seen a 
guilty criminal pass out of the Court room, acquitted and 
set free because of perjured testimony? What one of us 
has not seen the rights of persons and property sacrificed 
and trampled under foot, presumably under due form of 
lav, but really and truly by the use of corrupt, false and 
sometimes purchased testimony ? One judge of long expe- 

*"Couucil Bluffs (la.), July i6. 1901.— The President of the Bar Association 
madestartlingstatementsregardingr the prevalence of bribery in the Ameri- 
can Courts of Justice in his address to the Iowa State Bar Association."— Frrf* 
PKess. 



118 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

rience upon the bench writes me that in his opinion about 
one-half of all the evidence received on behalf of the 
defense in criminal cases is false. Another judge of 
equally high repute writes that he believes seventy-five 
per cent of the evidence offered in divorce cases approaches 
deliberate perjury. Another writes that perjury is com- 
mitted in a majority of important law suits, and that the 
crime is rapidly increasing.^ Surely, you will admit the 
alarming significance of such admissions?'^ enquired the 
Monocle. 

"Do you think, so far as the administration of our laws, 
we are different from other Nations ?' asked the newspaper- 
man. 

"I am making no comparisons. At the outset I deter- 
mined, in reply to your questions, to deal with your country 
alone. Having traveled through it from end to end and 
back again, I think I find myself competent to form a 
fairly correct judgment of many important things I have 
seen and heard and read of. You know my impressions. 
You are aware of my deep appreciation of the vastness and 
the beauty and the majesty of your great land, and you have 
heard me, in reply to you, of course, condemn some few 
things which here and there leave not altogether a pleasant 
impression. It would be a marvelous phenomena, indeed, 
were man or Nations perfect. Such a happy condition 
were impossible, but at any rate, it is the duty of Nations, 
and especially a Nation so blessed as these United States, 
to see to it that Justice, at least, be paramount and ever 
ready to give security and, therefore, confidence, peace and 
contentment to all. Your Judges, being desirous of purg- 
ing the courts of perjurers, and others of equally easy con- 
science, must be backed up by the people.'' 

"Then do you not think the Courts are properly 
upheld?" 



ACCEPTED 119 

"Upheld !" exclaimed the Monocle. "When yonr Judges 
find it difficult to get a conviction where a prisoner is 
proved guilty beyond the shadow of a doubt; when at- 
tempts are made, sucessfully or unsuccessfully, to bribe 
jurors; when perjury is flagrantly resorted to and gets 
away unpunished; when murderers found guilty and sen- 
tenced to death can for years hold Justice at bay and then 
escape her; when the robbers of your public funds from 
your public institutions remain undiscovered; when the 
decisions of your learned Judges are made faulty and sent 
to other learned Judges for revision; and, again,the decision 
of the other learned Judges are appealed and the Law-Court 
machinery is made to work at high pressure at the will of 
a wealthy litigant, who, without justice on his side, sooner 
than lose, will fight his less wealthy opponent to the last 
ditch of poverty! When we see all these injustices, these 
vexatious wrestlings with the law, these unholy blots be- 
spattered on the escutcheon of your proud and wonderful 
Nation, can we conclude that your law Courts are prop- 
erly upheld ? Go ! Lift the bandage from Justice's eyes 
and you will behold tears; inspect further, and you will 
discover that the scales she holds have been tampered with, 
and her defending sword made blunt. The sooner those 
tears are dried and you make your peace with Justice by 
readjusting those scales to the finest and truest balance, the 
better will it be for all. Eemember that in the establish- 
ment of Justice and the serenity of equitably distributed 
law depends the true ring of happiness and good faith and 
social and commercial integrity throughout the land.'' 



T.tShTo'riJhTi.Se! Cbe Dally Inflated 



Our motto is: Live 
and let live! 



Vol. XXIV 



New York, Monday, September 23rd, 1901 Price 5 Cents 



BANK WRECKERS PAR- 
DONED — WHY THEY 
SHOULD BE IS THE 
PUZZLE OF THE 
HOUR. 

Mr. Easy Cash, late mana- 
ger of the Iron-Safe Bank, 
which closed its doors just a 
year ago, was pardoned and 
released from jail yesterday. 
Mr. Easy Cash, it will be re- 
membered, was sentenced to 
two years' imprisonment. Hisj 
defalcations amounted to twen-i 
ty thousand dollars. Owing to| 
a petition, signed by many in-j 
fluential gentlemen, the release; 
was effected. Much surprise! 
has been expressed by the num-j 
erous depositors who were made 
absolutely penniless, that thei 
ex-manager should not have' 
been allowed to undergo the 
full term of his too short sent- 
ence. 

Mr. Uriah Squeals, ex-cash- 
ier of the Trust-All Bank, 
which through his peculations 
closed its doors a year ago, has 
been given his liberty. Our re- 
porter was informed that Mr. 
Uriah Squeals, who had only! 
served ten months of his three 
years' sentence, was in poor 
health and for that reason was 
released from jail. It will be 
remembered that Mr. Squeals' 
defalcations were exceptionally 
serious and caused wide-spread 
misery. 



THE MONOCLE SPEAKS OF 

OUR SOLDIERS. 

AGREES IN ALL THAT THE 

LIEUTENANT-GENERAL 

COMMANDING THE 

U. S. AKMY HAS 

SAID REGARDING THE 

POOR DEPORTMENT 

AND LAXITY OF 

MANNERS IN 

THE MEN. 

The Monocle was found by 
The Inflated's representative, 
glancing seriously over a re- 
cently published note to officers 
and men issued by the Lieuten- 
ant-General Commanding the 
U. S. Army. 

"Monocles being much in evi- 
dence in the British Army, you 
are, no doubt, in a position to 
speak on military affairs?" 
asked the newspaperman. 

"Yes, I have seen service in 
a monoelistic capacity and, 
naturally, take an interest in 
all matters of a military na- 
ture," replied the Monocle. 

"Of course, you have met our 
soldiers on your travels?" 

"I had the privilege of see- 
ing many of your regiments 
upon their return from your 
Philippine possessions." 

"Remembering your deter- 
mination I will refrain from 
asking you to make a compari- 
son between our Militia and 
your own." 

"That is very wise and very 
good of you." 



120 



ACCEPTED 121 

"May I ask the impression made on you by our fighters ?" 

"How could they impress anyone but as brave chaps; 
valiant lads, indeed, whose veins have bulged with the 
coursing blood of enthusiasm; sons of your soil who, 
shoulder to shoulder, have proved their readiness and will- 
ingness to fight and die for their country's honor, and the 
maintenance and defense of their unsullied flag? I have 
watched their bronzed faces and their snapping eyes as 
they disembarked from the transports, and I have followed 
their martial steps to their camps, through and up and 
down and across the mountainous streets on to the pic- 
turesque Presidio, which skirts the great San Francisco 
Bay. I have joined in the lusty cheers which greeted their 
return, and, indeed, I have been an ardent participant in 
several outbursts of well merited welcome." 

"Your praise is well bestowed," said the newspaper- 
man. 

"And well deserved," declared the Monocle; "but, mind 
you, while I say all this in their favor, I intend to be candid 
and truthful, since you question me upon one of the most 
important subjects at present engaging the attention of 
your Nation, as well as the observation of the great mili- 
tary powers beyond the seas. First of all it were well and 
essential that your soldier realize that discipline goes far 
to make a perfect fighting man. Without discipline a fight- 
ing body of men would become a disorganized crowd; 
therefore, a danger on the battle field. My remarks, I hope, 
will be taken in good part, since they are earnest, friendly 
and fraternal." 

"It is through the pointing out of faults and blemishes 
that better conditions are achieved in any walk of life; 
hence I invite your free and unqualified opinion as it 
affects our soldiery," said the newspaperman. 

"As you entered I was reading an order issued by your 
gallant soldier, the Lieutenant-General, with the intention 



122 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

of betteriDg the condition of the army. The General has 
not minced matters. The trnth^, you know, is not always 
sweet, yet, if it is to do any good, there is no use at all 
diluting and coloring it to serve the sensitive palate of those 
who must swallow it. It is pleasant to sugar-coat one's 
opinions; for then the compounder of the articles needn't 
be quite so distressed as must be the case when his drugs 
are given undisguised. Your gallant General, however, is, 
rightly, one of those apothecaries who are averse to sugar- 
coating and has, consequently, come out allopathically with 
his bitter aloes and, like it or not, your soldiers must swal- 
low the potion if they care at all, and, of course, they do, 
for the healthful and vigorous appearance of the service.'' 

"Appearances do not win battles," declared the news- 
paperman. 

"They go a good way toward it," interposed the 
Monocle. "A slovenly soldier is a poor representative of 
his country and you know, as well as I, that a smart de- 
meanor has much to do with the success attained in any 
walk of life. The sloven, of Avliatever profession or trade, 
rarely, if ever, makes a complete success. The well-groomed 
horse draws admiring eyes to it when the neglected beast 
fails to attract other than sorry recognition. It is just as 
essential for the soldier to see to it that his uniform is 
spick, span and spotless as for him to make sure that his 
arms are clean and fit to pass inspection. The soldier must 
not be satisfied to trim up for parade only. He owes it to 
his regiment, to his country, at all times and under all cir- 
cumstances, to appear in public in the best possible light. 
The order to the army of which I have spoken is timely 
and reads as follows : 

" 'Recent reports indicate the existence of 
marked unsoldierly deportment on the part 
of some of the troops, a condition apparently 



ACCEPTED 12a 

cultivated recently under the mistaken idea 
that a certain uncouthness of exterior and 
laxity of manners are the essential character- 
istics of a soldier. As they are subver- 
sive of discipline and efficiency, offenses of 
this nature must neither be ignored nor con- 
doned. Commanding officers are strictly ac- 
countable for the general appearance of their 
troops under ail circumstances, whether they 
be in garrison, camp, on the marcH, off duty 
or on brief furlough. Soldiers are as much 
responsible for their conduct while off the 
military reservations or out of camp as when 
in garrison.' 

"The General has spoken wisely and in good season," 
continued the Monocle, "and commanding officers re- 
specting his admonition will raise their men to a dignified 
standard.'^ 

"My dear Monocle, you still persist in forgetting that 
this is a Democratic country,^' growled the newspaperman. 

"Then, from your view point, or let me say from the 
view of too many of you good souls, one must be a down- 
right slovenly creature in order to be Democratic; 
you must be insolent to your superiors (the office they 
occupy having placed them in a position superior to the 
one you yourself hold) ; you must indulge ridicule with 
the determination that it shall overshadow reverencQ and 
encourage contempt for all that is pure and honest, and 
spit out rude personalties in the hope of totally eclipsing 
and soiling the sensitive and clean. It is not so long ago 
that one of your statesmen gloried in the boast that he 
was upholding Democratic principles by wilfully defying 
precedence and polite custom in refusing to aitend an 
important function in the orthodox evening suit. I heard 



124 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

of one well-known gentleman boasting that in spite of his 
wife's 'high toned' pleading, as he described the lady's 
importunities, he still proved, notwithstanding the wealth 
he had suddenly acquired, his support of Democratic prin- 
ciples by sitting at his sumptuous dinner table in his shirt 
sleeves. Is that not first-class, fine-edged twaddle? But 
your poor misused word. Democratic, what a heap of incon- 
sistencies, incongruities, vulgarities and shame-faced, red- 
hot, deliberate blackguardism you are called upon to 
father ! Every vulgarian excuses himself under cover of the 
word Democratic ; and those of your soldiers whose 'unsol- 
dierly deportment' and 'uncouthness of exterior' and 
'laxity of manners' have succeeded in bringing down upon 
them stinging official rebuke, of course, take refuge behind 
that obsolete fortification called Democratic ! But, sir, the 
word will no longer stand as an excuse for conduct unbe- 
<joming a man in or out of the service. The recent reports 
to which the General alludes are obviously too correct. 
Rowdyism, assaults, insults, attacks on and the demolishing 
of property, and other offenses, together with Ancient 
Pistol braggadocio, have been too freely indulged and too 
readily condoned. I witnessed on one occasion the riotous 
smashing up of a saloon in the vicinity of the Presidio by 
exuberant soldiers who, because they had seen service in 
the Philippines, were under the impression that they 
owned the citizens and the streets of San Francisco. A 
guard more than once has been ordered out to quell dis- 
turbances and bring in the men. On many occasions rowdy 
soldiers would come in contact with the police, and drunk- 
enness has been flaunted apparently without care for dis- 
cipline, or jealousy for the dignity and authority of the 
uniform. The streets have been made howling Bedlams 
by men who have received their discharge; to the noise 
and the rowdyism, the drunkenness in public and the 
demoniacal yells and cat-calls, with a good sprinkling of 



ACCEPTED 125 

sulphuric expletives and revolting blasphemy by 
men wearing their country's uniform, is no doubt 
due that severe official note of reminder and repri- 
mand. It is well that cognizance has been taken 
of such conduct, for it would be a million pities were the 
valor of such brave boys to be tarnished by conduct unbe- 
coming soldiers and gentlemen. I make so bold while 
discussing this subject with you, sir, to remind your sol- 
diers going from these shores to your newly acquired 
islands far away, that they can best prove the power and 
the greatness of your country by a dignified bearing, by 
obedience, discipline and the remembrance always, and 
under all circumstances, that they are representatives of a 
stalwart Nation which has entrusted to their care the sow- 
ing of the seed of a perfect civilization." 



Our circulation is 
healthy and rapid. 



Cbe Daily Tnflatea 



The greatest paper 
on earth! 



Vol. XXIV 



New York, Tuesday, September 24th, 1901 



Price 5 Cents 



MILLIONS GIVEN AWAY IN 

THE CAUSE OF 

CHARITY. 

The Daily Inflated, always 
to the fore in matters which 
concern the people, has had its 
representatives in the great 
cities of the world inquire, as 
far as such an undertaking is 
possible,into the charities given 
by the wealthy. The sums are 
beyond count. So very great 
are the gifts, and so many of 
the poor are receiving alms 
that are never made public, 
that we once again remind our 
readers that this is not the 
very bad world that some 
would have us believe it to be. 

The charity given away is 
enormous, and, still, there are 
the poor and there has been 
and there will ever be. But that 
is not the fault of the rich, for 
they do their best to lessen all 
misery while never is there one 
who would increase it! 

In another column the dis- 
tinguished visitor to our 
shores, the Monocle, speaks on 
the subject. 

The discussion we think, is 
timely. The wholesale condem- 
nation of a class because itj 
happens to be more fortunate! 
than another is miscnievous, 
and especially when the class 
assailed does every thing in its' 
power to assist the needy and 
the sick. 



THE MONOCLE DECLARES 

THAT THE RICH MAN 

IS THE FRIEND OF 

THE POOR AND 

CONDEMNS THE 

AGITATOR AND 

DISTURBER. 

"In view of what looks like 
an increased determination on 
the part of certain agitators to 
antagonize the poor against the 
rich, in consequence of the ap- 
parently malicious purpose of 
irresponsible and well paid dis- 
turbers to irritate the working 
man against his employer, I 
must venture a remark. It was 
not my intention to wade 
through this very troublous 
tide. I had made up my mind 
to pass over the unnecessarily 
unhappy conditions, though I 
will admit they have given me 
much concern. It is in view of 
certain happenings, it is 
through the many inflamed 
vital parts feverishly disturb- 
ing the industrial body, that I 
feel impelled to say a word for 
harmony and better feeling. It 
maybe asked *Who am I that 
dare enter the arena to discuss 
the vital subject?' To such I 
would give answer: I have as 
much liberty to speak and 
preach the doctrine of peace 
and good-will among men as 
have they who urge dissension 
and attempt, often only too 
successfully, to make the ar- 
tisan dissatisfied with hia lot. 



126 



ACCEPTED 127 

The employer of labor is no brute; he is no slave driver; 
he is amenable to argument when not aggressively forced ; 
he pays wages just as promptly when business is thorough- 
ly and down-right bad as when it is highly flourishing ; his 
workmen when injured are not neglected, many employers 
having established their own hospitals for their own maim- 
ed employees, and others support cots in public hospitals; 
while there are not a few who, through inability to work, 
are receiving pensions from the very men who are assailed 
and held up as the enemies and oppressors of the laborer by 
the bellows-mouthed agitator. The hours of labor are usual- 
ly consistent with health and domestic contentment. Wages 
are, almost in every case, just what the law of organized 
labor demands, and, in instances, more. On the very stroke 
of an agreed time all tools and implements are laid down 
and machinery stopped and the workingman hies him to 
his home, where he is welcomed by his children, who are 
receiving the same free education which has fitted many 
of the most prominent men for the high and distinguished 
National, Professional and Mercantile positions they hold 
at this very hour. No, my dear sir, there is not so 
very much to justify a grumble or discontent, but, 
on the other hand, there is everything to make 
you, me and all of us thankful to the Vv^'atchful Providence 
that has drawn humanity so closely together, that the suf- 
ferings and the tribulations of all are heard and heeded 
and abated as far as rests in human power; while, on the 
other hand, the joys and the triumphs of life are ushered 
in with one harmonious voice. Let it be remembered that a 
National calamity levels all classes. Be it remembered, 
also, that a disaster to an individual class draws out the 
profoundest sympathy, whether the suffering comes to the 
rich or the poor, and let me remind the agitator, and the 
disturbers of labor and the defamers of the rich, that the 
purse-strings of the wealthy are readily loosened 



128 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

and the gold flows willingly in quick response to 
calamities which often befall the toiler. Of course, 
as I mentioned in an early interview, there is 
much that could yet be done to alleviate suffering 
and, especially, in that one great direction, the better 
housing of the poor. But let us not forget the millions 
willingly given to lessen the suffering of humanity; let i;s 
take tender heed of the charitable work that is being done 
every moment of our lives by the Churches (yes, dear 
skeptic, by the Churches) ; by the good and noble wives of 
those very Capitalists whose benevolent names are insulted 
by the demagogic frothings of the street-corner Demos- 
thenes ! Let us remember the Capitalists themselves, whose 
time and money go hand in hand to direct and support 
hospitals and other institutions without which the laborer 
and the poor would fare badly indeed. Millions, I say, 
are given toward the amelioration of man^s sufferings. The 
orphan, the widow, the cripple, all find that a kindly hand, 
that of the rich, is stretched out to lend and give help. Let 
the agitator turn his mind and his hours to better account, 
in the charitable direction of preaching of the goodness 
and the kindness in the world. By so doing he will be a 
good man, for he will take sunshine where now he draws a 
crape mantle of dangerous darkness." 



Our watchword 
la: "Honesty!" 



Cbe Daiiy Inflated 



Spicy, pungent 
and fearless! 



Vol. XXIV New York, Wednesday, September 25tli, 1901 Price 6 Cents 



THE MONOCLE READS THE 
REPORT OF THE COM- 
MISSIONER OF IM- 
MIGRATION 
GIVES A STRONG INTER- 
VIEW AND ONE WORTH 
READING! POWER- 
FUL ARGU- 



ALARMING GROWTH OF 
OUR ALIEN POPULA- 
TION. 

FACTS AND FIGURES 
SPEAK VOLUMES. 

INCREASE BIG AND ILLIT- 
ERATE! SHALL IT 
CONTINUE? 

Without eomment we give 
the following extract from the 
annual report of the ComTnis- 
sioner of Immigration, received 
at the Treasury Department, 
Washington : 

"The number of aliens who 
arrived during the fiscal year 
ended June 30th, 1901, was 
453,496; the steerage aliens 
numbered 388,931. 

The conclusion is unavoid- 
able, unfortunately, that our 
immigration is constantly in- 
creasing in illiteracy. Not only 
are we drawing more and more 
from the countries where illit- 
eracy is high but also the immi- 
grants themselves are show- 
ing higher percentage of illit- 
eracy. Nearly one half of our 
steerage immigrants now pre- 
sent an ILLITERACY of from 
FORTY TO FIFTY per cent." 

We would remind our read- 
ers that this rush of 388,931 
alien immigrants means a great 
strain upon the already crowd- 
ed labor market. The question 
is: Are we to tolerate this 
sort of thing? Shall the labor 
market be so over-stocked as 

to ultimately be the means of ing is ILLITERATE, and, bear 
over-taxing the citizens — those in mind that by ILLITERATE, 
legitimately of the soil? I in this case, the GOVERN- 

129 

129-9 



MENT. 

A representative of The In- 
flated interviewed the Monocle 
with regard to the immigration 
which has reached such propor- 
tions that we deemed it a fit op- 
portunity to obtain a disinter- 
ested view. 

"YES," said the Monocle^ 
"the statistics show that the 
influx of immigrants for the 
fiscal year ending in June last, 
was enormous and it is surely 
a question whether the inlet to 
these shores ought to be al- 
lowed to continue. The nation 
getting rid of its surplus stock 
of its soiled human remnants 
is fortunate; fortunate, indeed, 
in having a dumping ground 
upon which to place its bur- 
densome freight of undesirable 
and, in many instances, unholy, 
low-browed, mischief -hatching 
and unwashed, poor images of 
man. Your official report, al- 
low me to say once more and 
with emphasis, YOUR OF- 
FICIAL REPORT declares that 
even from FORTY TO FIFTY 
per cent of this motley gather- 



130 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

MENT means that between FORTY AND FIFTY per 

cent of your new proteges are nnable to read and write. 
The number of foreigners who came steerage to swell the 
population of these hospitable shores, remember, is not 
very far short of the HALF MILLION mark and, my 
friend, in one year at that! And also remember that of 
that number you receive between FORTY AND FIFTY 
per cent of ILLITERATES !" 

"In this very city, the Metropolis of the United States, 
through whose portly and wide doors have come these 
ILLITERATES, there is a continual cry for school accom- 
modation for the children of your own, schools which must 
receive, when increased accommodation is ready, the off- 
spring of the between FORTY AND FIFTY per cent of 
the ILLITERATE of recent arrival. 

"I will not say that there are not some respectable and 
good persons among the crowd. Of course there are, and 
some very estimable persons, too. But we all know that 
the majority are not the most desirable folk in the world. 
If you are particular to increase the population of the 
States, then why not offer inducement to a thrifty class 
to come and settle and multiply and till the soil and make 
your mills the model mills of Nations ? 

"Why not let the yeomen of the sturdy Nations know 
that awaiting them are acres and acres of good and desir- 
able lands, not a million miles, either, from civilization! 
There are hundreds and thousands of the better class who 
would come here did they know that there are farms in 
plenty going to waste in beautiful New England, in Con- 
necticut, New Jersey and many other States of the Union. 
On the other hand, it is positively alarming when one con- 
siders the classes from which the greater number of the 
teeming immigrants have sprung! For my part I con- 
sider it an injustice to the people of the soil, the people 
who are bred and bom and nurtured here. Admittedly it 



ACCEPTED 131 

is a great, vast country and there is room aplenty to ac- 
commodate the crowd ! That is all very well, but you 
want to put upon the vast lands the proper set; those who 
will some day be a credit and a substantial help to the 
country. Almost a half-million in a year of a piccalilli- 
mixture of foreigners ! Think, and think well on't — a 
piccalilli assortment of benighted, illiterate souls! What 
are you going to do about it ? you ask me. That is for your 
statesmen to decide; but the day is not far distant when 
the question will have to be taken up for the good of the 
country and the peace and tranquil mind of the people.'' 



A family paper report- 
ing scandals in full. 



Cbe Daily Tnflaud 



We print all the 
news of the day. 



Vol. XXIV New York, Thursday, September 26th, 1901 Price 5 Cents 



PROSPERITY THROUGHOUT 

THE COUNTRY IN ALL 

INDUSTRIES. 

The statistics from every 
Industrial Department of the 
United States reveal the emin 
ently satisfactory condition of 
the country. Prosperity is 
everywhere, and there never 
was a time when there was so 
great a demand for labor, or 
when labor could be so satis- 
fied with the conditions. 

The Savings Banks are proof 
of the thrift and the good 
sense of the wage-earner. 

The Building Trade in each 
of its many branches is thriv- 
ing from the Eastern to the 
Western coast. Merchandise 
finds a ready market. The far- 
mer has had bountiful crops, 
the foreign markets, eager for 
our goods, buy generously from 
us, our Government is strong 
in the estimation of the world. 

What more can a nation ask ? 
What greater blessing can be 
bestowed? There is no room 
then in this community of con- 
tented people for sniveling mal- 
contents and bilious pessi- 
mists. 

Let each emulate the jubila- 
tion of the wise and the thrifty 
and the God-fearing, industri- 
ous majority, and all shall be 
happy. 

We, as a Nation, are build- 
ing all the time, our foundation 
is impregnable and our object 
is Progression with Peace and 
Happiness. 

They are good builders who 
lay and cement every stone and 
they are bad men who would 
destroy the good work. 



132 



THE MONOCLE'S PARTING 
WORDS BEFORE LEAV- 
ING FOR HAPPY 
OLD ENGLAND. 
MAKES SOME VALUABLE 
PROMISES. ITS TRUE 
MISSION TO THE 
U. S. A. EXPLAINED. 
IMPORTANT STATEMENT 
ISSUED BY THE EDI- 
TORS OF THE IN- 
FLATED. 

Trunks galore were being 
piled upon a wagon when Tlw 
Daily Inflated's representative 
encountered the Monocle hop- 
ping nimbly into a hansom. 

"God save the King!" cried 
the Monocle jubilantly, as the 
doors of the hansom were slam- 
med together; "and in the same 
breath I say, God preserve 
your President and bless your 
people and keep you in con- 
tinued prosperity and increased 
happiness ! " 

"Why, what is this?" asked 
The Inflated' s representative as 
he observed the Union Jack and 
the Stars and Stripes entwined 
around the rim of the Monocle. 

"I have received a cable and 
must return to London," re- 
plied the Monocle, "but before 
leaving I will admit my mission 
here has been to study your cur- 
rents ere the next yacht race 
in 1905. I have studied and 
have been enabled, therefore, to 
give Sir Thomas the results 
of my investigation of your 



ACCEPTED 133 

waters. I know your currents and I know your winds. 
I have also noted your jockeys and have kodaked their 
methods for British horse owners. I have successfully 
bored deep into the workings of your great commercial 
combinations, and I take back with me colored vitascopic 
views of the brotherly love arguments between your Capital- 
ists and your Laborers. I carry in my convex form statis- 
tics of the immigration to your shores as proof of the too 
open asylum you have allowed yourself to become, and I 
intend lecturing throughout the British Isles upon Free- 
dom and Equality as I have seen them and enjoyed them 
abroad ; at the same time illustrating, with the promptings 
of a Tammany Hall phonograph, your National, State and 
Municipal Governments and Mr. Bartholdi^s Statue of 
Liberty/' 



IMPOKTANT STATEMENT BY THE EDITORS OF 
THE INFLATED, 

THE DAILY INFLATED, 

Balloon Building, 
Gasometer Eow, 
New York City, Oct. 17, 1901. 
In compliance with the requests of the Chief of the 
Political Wigwam of the city, we, the undersigned, on oath 
deny any sympathy with the majority of the views and 
opinions expounded by the Monocle in the interviews 
given our representatives. 

We are too United States American in mind and feel- 
ing to coincide with any foreigner, no matter how dis- 
tinguished. Our motto is : "America for Americans ; we 
can do no wrong ; Hurrah for Old Glory !" Furthermore, we 
are convinced that the Monocle,in giving the answers to our 



134 INTERVIEWS WITH A MONOCLE 

reporters, as published in our columns, shows conclusively 
that a bias and prejudice influenced its conclusions. 

We assure our political confreres that it would be im- 
possible for us to agree with such views and again pledge 
our readers and supporters that since publishing the inter- 
views our loyalty to the Land of the Free and the Home 
of the Brave has increased to a proportion that is as wide 
and extended as the Continent itself, and as warm as the 
furnace-zephyrs that waft o'er our newly acquired island? 
and kiss the waters of the Pacific. 

NEBUCHADNEZZAR INKEY, 
EBENEZER SPIKEM, 
U. C. STUNTS, 

Editors. 

THE END. 



•i 



List of Educational Publications 

...OF... 

The Whitaker & Ray Company 

San Francisco 

Complete Descriptive Circular sent on application 



Net Prices 

Algebraic Solution of Equations— Andre and Buchanan - - - $0 80 

An Aid to the Lady of the Lake, etc.— J. W. Graham - - - 25 

Amusing Geography and Map Drawing— Mrs. L. C. Schutze - - 1 00 

Brief History of California— Hittell and Faulkner - - - - 50 

Current History— Harr Wagner 25 

Civil Government Simplified— J.J. Duvall 25 

Complete Algebra— J. B. Clarke 1 00 

Elementary Exercises in Botany— V. Rattan 75 

Grammar by the Inductive Method— W. C. Doub - - - - 25 

Heart Culture— Emma E, Page 75 

How to Celebrate— J. A. Shedd 25 

Key to California State Arithmetic— A. M. Armstrong - - 1 00 

Key to West Coast Botany— V. Rattan 1 00 

Lessons Humane Education — Emma E. Page — per part ... 25 

Lessons in Nature Study— Jenkins and Kellogg 1 00 

Lessons in Language Work — Susan Isabel Frazee - - - - 50 

Manual of School Law— J. W. Anderson 1 25 

Matka— David Starr Jordan 75 

Moral Culture as a Science— Bertha S. Wilkins - - - - 1 00 

Nature Stories of the North-West — Herbert Bashford ... 60 

New Essentials of Book-keeping— C. W. Childs .... 75 

Orthoepy and Spelling— John W. Imes— per part .... 20 

Poems for Memorizing— Alice R, Power 60 

Paper and Cardboard Construction— A, H. Chamberlain - - 75 

Pacific History Stories— Harr Wagner 50 

Pacific Nature Stories— Harr Wagner 50 

Patriotic Quotations— Harr Wagner 40 

Readings from California Poets — Edmund Russell ... 25 

Science Record Book— Josiah Keep 50 

Shells and Sea Life— Josiah Keep 50 

Stories of Oregon— Eva E. Dye 50 

Supplement to State History— Harr Wagner 25 

Spanish in Spanish 125 

Spanish Phonography — I. I. Ferry 1 00 

Story of Evangeline— L. H.Vincent 25 

Stories of Our Mother Earth— H. W. Fairbanks .... 50 

Studies in Entomology — H.M.Bland 50 

Study of the Kindergarten Problems— F. L, Burk ... 50 

Tales of Discovery on Pacific Slope — M. G. Hood .... 50 

Tales of Philippines— R. Van Bergen 50 

Topical Analysis of United States History— C. W. Childs - - 75 

Topical Discussions of American History— W. C. Doub - - 60 

Toyon Holiday Recitations— Allie M. Felker 36 

West Coast Shells— Josiah Keep 1 76 



AOD W^ liliti 



APR 7 1902 



List of Miscellaneous Publications 

...OF... 

The Whitaker & Ray Company 

San Francisco 

Complete Descriptive Circular sent on application 

Postpaid Prices 

Adventures of a Tenderfoot— H. H. Sauber $1 00 

About Dante— Mrs. Frances Sanborn 100 

Among the Redwoods— Poems— Lillian H. Shuey .... 25 

Beyond the Gates of Care— Herbert Bashford 1 00 

Backsheesh— Book of Travels— Mrs. William Beckman - - - 1 50 

California and the Californians— David Starr Jordan ... 25 

Care and Culture of Men— David Starr Jordan 150 

Chants for the Boer- Joaquin Miller 25 

Complete Poetical Works of Joaquin Miller - - - - - 2 60 

Crumbs of Comfort— AUie M. Felker 1 00 

California's Transition Period— S. H. Willey 1 00 

Doctor Jones' Picnic — S. E. Chapman 75 

Delphine and Other Poems— L. Adda Nichols - - - - - 1 00 

Educational Questions— W. C. Doub 1 00 

Forty-Nine- Song— Lelia France 10 

Forget-Me-Nots— Lillian L. Page 50 

Guide to Mexico— Christobal Hidalgo 50 

Hail California — Song— Josephine Gro 10 

History of Howard Presbyterian Church— S. H. Willey - - 1 00 

Life— Book of Essays— John R. Rogers 1 00 

Love and Law— Thos. P. Bailey 25 

Lyrics of the Golden West— W. D. Crabb - - - - - 100 

Main Points— Rev. Chas- R. Brown 1 25 

Man Who Might Have Been— Rev. Robt. Whitaker ... 25 

Matka and Kotik— David Starr Jordan 1 50 

Modern Argonaut — L. B. Davis 1 00 

Missions of Neuva California— Chas. F. Carter 1 50 

Pandora— Mrs. Salzscheider - 100 

Percy, or the Four Inseparables— M. Lee 1 00 

Personal Impressions of Colorado Grand Canyon - - - 100 

Rudyard Reviewed— W.J. Peddicord 1 00 

Seven Ages of Creation 2 50 

Some Homely Little Songs— A.J. Waterhouse 125 

Songs of the Soul— Joaquin Miller 1 00 

Story of the Innumerable Company— David Starr Jordan - - 1 25 

Sugar Pine Murmurings— Eliz. S. Wilson 100 

Training School for Nurses— A. Mabie - 50 

Without a Name — Poems— Edward Blackman 1 00 

Wolves of the Sea— Poems— Herbert Bashford 1 00 



(^^^ 

^9^ 














^^ 







^^. 



/*!> y p C^ >>■ *p 






^^ 



.fS^^< 






^ . -^r^ 






,-.^ ^^ 



,0^^ 



AX^ -^^^ 






,0 a 



V. * 



V <> ^ 









%> .^V^ 






•.- <-> 



.0^ 










.5^' ■"- 



;. -^-.^^^^ 






^. ^ » * s ^ ^0 



.s^ <^. 



^ ^ri 



,ov^ 



^-.^ 



■A • Ki 






^-' -o 


o'* 


^ 




, -.., . ^^-^ 


■% 








« , ^ 


%; 


%/ 


/"^ 




-*• 




-.-.%'■' 








^^^ 


v*^ 







v^' 



oo 



"■<^y. .^^' 






.>^ 



^^-^-^ 









•^^ 



•■i' 






,x*- -' 



■^^■i''- 



:s 



■'%■ ^^' 









